


Spun Right Round

by Omorka



Series: Eighth Dimension And Beyond [1]
Category: Buckaroo Banzai - Fandom, Eureka
Genre: Gen, Time Travel, mild violence, parallel worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 15:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omorka/pseuds/Omorka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a routine Jet Car test, Buckaroo Banzai - scientist, doctor, adventurer, and rock star - is thrown off course and ends up in the mountains outside Eureka. Henry, Fargo, and the other scientists of Eureka take up the task of figuring how he got there and getting him home, while Jack and Jo deal with the consequences of his arrival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spun Right Round

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place mostly in the Eurekaverse, so if you've read the Banzai wiki page, you can probably follow along on that end without seeing the movie. (If you have seen the movie but not read the book, Big Norse is an intern for the Cavaliers during the film; I figured she earned her place on the team in the meantime.) Takes place a few years after the movie in the Banzaiverse, and in late Season 2 in the Eurekaverse. Many thanks to Jeff Morris for the beta job; all remaining errors are solely my fault.

The temperate rainforests of Oregon and Washington have never been quiet, exactly. Birdsong and the steady rustle of the breeze caressing the firs and redwoods provide a murmuring background, even where there are no trickling brooks carrying meltwater on the first stages of its journey from the Cascades to the Pacific, and no winding roads between hills and river valleys. And, of course, often there's the gentle patter of rain, or the scattered splashes of droplets falling from needles and ferns afterwards. But to someone used to, say, the teeming masses of Los Angeles, or even Newark, they can seem, if not silent, then at least blissfully peaceful.

It had finished raining an hour beforehand, and there was a trace of mist drifting between the massive, moss-covered trunks. The curve of the two-lane road was only a few hundred feet away from the nearly vertical, well-lichened rock face that hinted of the mountain to the north, but there was no traffic on it this early in the morning. So when the squirrels and crows felt the approaching vibrations and scattered, there was no one to see them go.

The rock face suddenly glimmered with blue-white light, reflected from the wrong side. The rumbling got louder, and suddenly a vehicle the size of a truck spewed from it at incredible speed. It skidded on the mud and moss of the forest floor, fishtailing madly as it barely evaded the redwoods in its path before spinning completely out of control and coming to a forced stop against the roots of one of the mammoth evergreens, one back wheel tilted in the air on the uneven ground.

For a few moments, as the screaming of the engine and the screeching of the brakes faded, the quiet of the forest returned. A faint hissing accompanied the vapor that curled from the underbelly of the vehicle; more began to waft from its sides and top, at least where bare metal was visible. The window of the driver's side door jolted, then was kicked open against the brush that pressed against it, shattered safety glass spattering the underbrush like a reminder of winter's frost. A lean figure wriggled out, clearing the broken edges cleanly and dropping lightly to the ground. The lithe man wore a leather driving suit in black and silver, with well-worn boots and a mirror-visored helmet. He pressed one gloved hand against the side of the vehicle, then jerked it back; while his eyes were still invisible behind the visor, he seemed to be staring at the rapidly-spreading crystals of ice forming in the wake of the trickling mist.

His hands found the sides of the helmet and tugged it away. A young but experienced face with narrow, intelligent features, capped by a short but riotous mop of sweaty black curls, gazed at the wrecked vehicle with a look of mild concern. His expression changed to surprise as his view expanded to take in the ferns, the mosses, the towering trees, and the heavy grey sky above them. One hand pushed his hair back from his forehead and wiped the sweat from his dark eyes as he spun slowly in a circle, taking in every detail of his surroundings.

"Uh-oh," he murmured to the canopy, as a few brave crows returned to their perches and stared.

\---

Dr. Mikhail Babajanian groaned at the sound of the doorbell. His was more of a buzzer, and he'd threatened to disconnect it numerous times. Not that it sounded very often; he lived well away from even the outskirts of Eureka. He preferred to keep to himself, both for his own personal comfort and because his experiments tended to be noisy. Dr. Jamison, his closest neighbor, lived a good two miles away, and he was the reason Mikhail's doorbell had rung the last three times - once when Jamison had come in person to gripe, and the last two times when the sheriff and his deputy had received a noise complaint and made their official appearance.

The door buzzed again. Dr. Babajanian pressed his hands to his ears. He was in no mood for company. His last experiment had concluded without providing enough data to either support or disprove his hypothesis, and now the mechanism was developing a set of vibrations that threatened to damage his sensor array. He needed to concentrate on the complicated metal apparatus in front of him.

"Anybody home?" a muffled voice called from the front door. Mikhail turned, about to shout "go away!", when the words died in his throat. Really, what if this were someone who truly needed assistance and wouldn't leave until he got it? Dr. Babajanian might have this stranger camped on his doorstep waiting for someone else to show up for hours.

"Who's there? I'm busy," he barked instead.

"I'm Dr. Buckaroo Banzai," the voice answered. "Maybe you've heard of me."

"I don't work for Global directly anymore. I'm not up on their new hotshots," Mikhail called back. He edged towards the door. Who was this guy, assuming that just because he was hot stuff at whatever university he'd come from, everyone here would know his name?

There was a slight pause. "I don't know what Global is. I thought maybe you might have heard the band?"

Oh, that explained it. Well, perhaps he'd misjudged this guy, if he really was famous out in the mundane world. "I don't listen to the radio. What are you doing all the way out here?"

"My car ran off the road. Well, actually, it wasn't on the road to begin with, but the road it wasn't on wasn't here. I need to get back to either Banzai World Headquarters or the test grounds in Texas." The voice was strangely matter-of-fact.

Well. If someone was going to get thrown that far off track, then Eureka was the place where that would happen, wasn't it? Mikhail nodded despite himself. He fumbled in his pocket for his phone.

"Back up a step," Dr. Babajanian called, and opened the door a crack. The man standing on the other side was tall, well-tanned, and curly-haired; he was dressed in what looked like a test driver's leathers, with a bright red headband tied around his forehead. The jacket was unzipped, revealing a well-tailored but rumpled oxford shirt in a deep lavender.

He liked him at first sight. Stranger or not, this guy looked trustworthy, in a way that few people in Mikhail's life were. Dr. Babajanian reached out between the door and the frame and handed him the phone.

"Dial Star-9. That'll get you the sheriff's office. Ask them to call Henry's tow service for you." Dr. Babajanian watched the other man take the phone and inspect it closely.

"That's the smallest Go-Phone I've ever seen," commented Dr. Banzai. "I didn't think this technology was available generally yet."

Dr. Babajanian smiled. He never smiled in front of strangers, but somehow this new fellow already wasn't a stranger; he felt like he'd known him for years. "Perks of living in Eureka."

"Is that where I am?" Dr. Banzai didn't seem to recognize the name.

"Eureka, Oregon. Is there anything I can get you while you're here?"

"Oregon. Okay." Buckaroo pressed the asterisk and the 9 key. "A glass of water would be great," he said as he raised the phone to his ear. Mikhail disappeared into his kitchen and hunted for a clean glass.

When Sheriff Carter pulled up, Buckaroo and Mikhail were sitting on the front porch discussing the vibratory rates of different tungsten alloys, and whether it was likely to rain.

\---

"That's quite a jam there," Jo observed, inspecting the Jet Car where it sat against the redwood. The air reeked of fuel exhaust, ozone, and evergreen bark.

Jack was paying more attention to the ruts the wheels had gouged into the forest floor. Tracking them back to the cliff face would have been easy for a five-year-old. "That can't really have happened."

Henry was deep in conversation with Dr. Banzai. "The problem isn't getting a vehicle strong enough to tow it," he was explaining. "I assure you, the truck can handle it. The problem is going to be getting it to the road from here. The cable's not long enough to reach, and I didn't bring any hoverpads with me. We can run back to town and fetch some, but it'll be another hour."

"That's fine. I don't think I'm in any hurry. I might need you to take me to a phone, though," Banzai responded, looking through the broken window into the cockpit of the Jet Car abstractedly.

"Henry, will you come take a look at this for me?" Jack interrupted, gesturing the older scientist over.

"Sure, Jack. Here, Dr. Banzai, you can borrow mine for the moment." Henry dug his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Buckaroo, who looked at it with only slightly less surprise than he had regarded Dr. Babajanian's.

The sheriff pointed at the apparent origin of the heavy vehicle's tracks as Henry joined him. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not exactly normal, is it?"

For a moment, Henry didn't answer. He frowned at the dark trails of bared earth, bounded by crushed ferns and scattered leafmeal, and crouched to trace the marks of a tire tread with one finger. Then he stood back up and wandered over to the cliff face.

"The tire tracks start right at the edge of the rock," Jo added. "That's not even physically possible - they should start one wheel radius away at a minimum, and that's if the wheels weren't attached to the rest of that - thing."

Henry nodded. "I agree completely. Have you taken any photos yet?"

Jo shook her head, reaching for one of her belt holsters with her left hand. She pulled out a mini-cam and began video-recording the site. Henry stepped back and looked at Jack. "What do you make of it?"

Jack made a wry face and tapped at the bare rock. It seemed perfectly solid. "A holographic car wouldn't leave real tire tracks. And this isn't a holographic wall. I'm not coming up with much else."

Dr. Banzai joined them, holding the phone back out to Henry. "Thank you for the use of your telephone, Dr. Deacon, but I think the connection out here is faulty. I'm not able to contact anyone at the Institute."

"Seemed okay earlier." Henry hit a button and held the phone to his ear. "It's connecting with the service station all right." He started describing their location to the person on the other end.

"Maybe it's just out-of-state calls, then." Dr. Banzai made an apologetic gesture that wasn't quite a full shrug. "I'm getting out-of-service messages for both the test site and headquarters." He followed Jack's gaze. "I suppose that does look fairly strange, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it does," Sheriff Carter agreed. "Can you fill us in on how this happened?"

Buck nodded. "How much have you seen about the Jet Car's previous trials?"

Jo raised an eyebrow. Jack and Henry exchanged a glance as Henry snapped his phone shut. "Um, nothing," Jack answered. "This is the first time we've seen this vehicle, remember?"

Buck frowned. "None of you watch television?"

"Sure, we do," Jo answered, her eyebrows drawing together. "Well, at least, I do. But I haven't seen anything about your car."

He shook his head. "All the major networks had footage of it. Dr. Deacon, as a man interested in vehicular technology, you must have seen something - the specs in _Popular Automotive_, or our write-up in _Scientific American_."

Henry shook his head slowly. "I typically read more technical journals than those, but Spencer reads them both, and he hasn't mentioned anything about you. Or the Jet Car, more to the point, here."

"How strange. I should - " His gaze fell on the phone that Henry hadn't put away yet. "Dr. Deacon, may I see your telephone again?"

"Sure," Henry agreed, handing it back with a slightly puzzled look. Buckaroo tapped the screen and looked at it, eyes widening just slightly. The younger scientist looked up. "Is this date accurate?"

"To the millisecond," Henry answered. "Why?"

"I think I may understand why you haven't seen the Jet Car recently, although this doesn't explain why you haven't ever heard of it before," Buck responded softly. He handed the phone back to Henry yet again, and then held up his watch so the others could see it.

The phone read _August 18, 2007_. Buck's watch read _09/25/87_.

"You're from twenty years in the past?" Jo blurted.

"That's even less possible than that thing coming out of the wall there," Jack objected.

"That's what I've been working towards; that part's not impossible at all." Dr. Banzai looked at the three of them, and his face took on an expression that Jo and Jack both saw far too often. It was the look that said _I don't expect you to actually understand this, but I'll try to make it simple enough to grasp the essentials._

He took a breath and began his lecture: "You understand, of course, that all matter is made up of atoms, and that atoms are in turn made of smaller particles - leptons and quarks, mostly." Jo nodded; Henry looked like he might have been about to raise an objection but thought better of it. Buck continued, "But the vast majority of any piece of matter is empty space. The particles are so far apart that two molecules brought in contact would pass through each other, if not for the other forces involved."

"Namely, the electromagnetic fields produced by the electrons in their orbits, which in this instance behave less like particles and more like force fields," Henry added. He didn't seem irritated at the high school physics lecture; Jack was impressed by his friend's patience.

Buck's eyes lightened slightly, as he realized he could increase the technicality of his explanation. "Exactly. Now, imagine for a moment that you could impose an effect through high-frequency, high-amplitude fluctuations in a non-electromagnetic field that would force electrons to behave as if they _were_ particles. What would happen?"

Henry frowned slightly. "The matter in question would fail to cohere, wouldn't it? All the molecular bonds would just - stop working." He gestured as if he were crumbling a dry leaf in one hand.

Dr. Banzai shook his head. "No, that's what would happen if you cancelled the electromagnetic attraction with another electromagnetic field. A disintegrator-ray effect. I've seen one; it's not pretty."

"Yes, I know," Henry nodded. Sheriff Carter looked at Jo and cocked one eyebrow; she lifted her head slightly, then pointed back towards town with one hand. That weapon hadn't been on the master list; if they had one, he was going to have to talk her into showing it to him.

Buckaroo noticed the exchange but politely ignored it, and continued: "This field is more like an observer effect, an overlay of _perception_ on the usual probability field of the electrons. It restricts them to a particular location, so they behave as particles. They still have their charge, so the attractions between atoms in a given molecule remain, but different molecules become permeable to each other. The particles pass through the empty spaces, like sand through a sieve." He waved at the Jet Car, perched on a redwood root. "My experimental vehicle has been equipped with an Oscillation Overthruster that produces such an effect. It allows me - or whoever's driving, but we've only tested it with me so far - to pass through solid matter. When I started today, I was entering a mountain in the deserts of northwest Texas." He paused, one hand brushing the cliff they stood near. "I came out here. And now, apparently."

Henry shook his head slowly, the light reflecting oddly in his dark eyes. "That - still shouldn't work. As long as the photon exchange between the electrons is still permitted, whether the electrons are behaving as waves or as particles shouldn't change the strength of the electromagnetic field."

Buckaroo nodded. "There's a slight dimensional displacement effect as well, to clear the extraneous field repulsion. The first time I tried it, I ended up in contact with the Eighth Dimension. I didn't fully enter it, fortunately, but -"

Henry had snapped to attention at the mention of the Eighth Dimension. "Wait. Your Oscillation Overthruster moves you through multidimensional space? May I take a look at it?"

Buck's face became guarded for a moment, but it quickly passed. "It's powered down now, but I don't see why not," he agreed amiably. The two of them headed back towards the Jet Car, discussing electron orbital variances.

"How much of that did you follow?" Carter asked Lupo as they followed the pair of scientists.

"All of it except the part about there being eight dimensions," Jo answered. "I know spacetime has four, and string theory says there are up to eleven, I thought? But not eight."

Jack shrugged. "You're doing better than I am." They trailed after Henry, who had climbed up on one of the big roots and was dangling half-through the missing window of the vehicle. Dr. Banzai was watching with a look of concerned detachment; Jack wondered fleetingly how he pulled that off.

Henry's back stiffened. "Dr. Banzai," he called back, his voice muffled by the car's frame, "what's your power source for this thing?"

"The Jet Car runs on standard high-altitude jet airplane fuel," Banzai answered. "At much higher efficiency than most commercial jets, of course."

"I mean _this_ thing," Henry replied, his legs shifting to the side as he reached for something Jack couldn't see.

Banzai visibly decided whether this was something he should tell Henry or not. He came to a quick conclusion, apparently in the affirmative: "There's a hydrogen fuel cell that generates electricity for all the electronic operations, including the Oscillation Overthruster."

Henry carefully withdrew his head and shoulders from the window. "At approximately one and a quarter gigawatts, right?"

Banzai nodded gently, his eyebrows slightly raised. "Yes, that's essentially correct."

Henry looked both impressed and concerned. He beckoned the sheriff over with one hand. "Jack, I'm going to give Allison and Nathan a call. We're going to be towing this thing back to GD. I don't have the right equipment at the garage, and Stark needs to see this."

Jo frowned. "Dr. Banzai doesn't have clearance."

Something in Henry's expression shifted. "I'll vouch for him. Allison can give him a 24-hour visitor's pass. I can't imagine he'll leave the immediate vicinity of the Jet Car unless he has to; he won't go wandering around Global."

Jack considered objecting, and then decided against it. "It sounds like he's seen his share of weird science already. How are we going to get it out of the wedge it's in, though?"

"Spencer's coming with a couple of hoverpads." Henry removed his cap and wiped his forehead. "I don't want to risk damaging the undercarriage any more than it's already been."

Jack glanced in the direction of the road, at all the brush between here and there. Even with a pair of Henry's hoverpads, this was going to be a tricky operation.

Dr. Banzai was still staring at the Jet Car as if the force of his own concentration could move it. For an instant, Jack wondered if it could.

\---

"I've lost contact with the Jet Car! I'm getting no signal! Over." Big Norse's voice in the headsets was unusually high; Reno frowned - it took more than a momentary loss of radio contact to rattle her.

Professor Hikita came crackling through the earpiece. "Confirming loss of signal. I am not reading the Overthruster; repeat, not reading the Overthruster on any scanners."

Reno pinched the microphone on his headset and pointed it closer to his mouth. He knew it didn't really need that; it wasn't a directional mike, but his stage instincts made it hard to speak into the side of one of these things. "Buckaroo, come in. What's the situation? Over."

Silence and static roared louder than the Jet Car's engines could. Reno frowned harder. "Buckaroo Banzai, this is Staging One; you're off our scopes. We need a status update, boss. Over."

Nothing. Big Norse took over; "Doctor Banzai, this is Mission Control; check in, over." She repeated the message twice more, with increasing ferocity. Reno locked eyes with New Jersey; they whipped off their headsets in one near-simultaneous move and Reno jumped out of his chair, reaching for the door of their observation shack. New Jersey stopped to call into his mike "Um, Mission Control, this is Staging One; we're going to, uh, check out the situation on the bikes." He set down the headset, started for the door, then stopped and picked up Reno's. "Over." He dropped it and jogged out into the high Texas sun.

The two motorcycles were sleek racing numbers; they'd been donated to the Hong Kong Cavaliers after the Lectroid Incident, and they'd been ridden hard and put away wet several times since, but they were still fast and maneuverable out on this plaza when most vehicles weren't. Reno snapped his helmet on and revved the engine as New Jersey mounted up; he took off, with his less experienced comrade a few decameters behind him.

Dust curled in long, lazy trails behind them as they sped towards the mountain. Reno hoped the helmet headset was activated. "Mission Control, come in, over."

"Control here." He heard the sounds of a calculator; that meant Big Norse had an idea already. Good.

"Can you give us the Jet Car's last recorded location? Over." The unofficial track leading up the mountain still wasn't paved, but out here the ground was so flat it didn't really matter. New Jersey pulled up along his left flank, helmet scanning back and forth.

Big Norse read off a stream of numbers, then added "That's pretty much directly northwest of the entry target, about point-nine kilometers in. Point-five-two K short of the exit target. Over."

"Right. We're going to take a look by the exit and see if maybe Buckaroo made it out, but something blew all the transmitters. Over." He nodded at New Jersey, who veered left as Reno hung a right.

There was something vaguely alien about this landscape, for Reno, anyway. Oh, he liked the high desert of the American Southwest just fine, but it was a place that always seemed haunted by echoes of the past - by disappearing Native tribes, empty mines, and ghost towns. This flat was no different, and the mountains that reared suddenly out of it occasionally took on sinister aspects.

Reno shook his head to clear it. That sort of thinking wasn't going to get them anywhere. He steered around a sudden clump of yucca plants and looked at the horizon.

Somehow, New Jersey made it to the exit target before he did. "Mission Control, this is New Jersey," the helmet speaker crackled. "I'm at the exit point. No sign of Banzai, or the Jet Car, or anything, really. No new tracks. Um, over."

"Anything on the way around?" One of the reasons Reno had split them up was to check for an unplanned exit.

"Just tumbleweeds and a jackrabbit." New Jersey's voice was tentative. Had he seen something else? Some sign of Hanoi Xan's handiwork?

Reno took the last bend at a ludicrous speed, skidding to a stop in a cloud of dust and burning rubber. New Jersey was off his bike, poking around at some of the remnant tracks from an earlier trial, mostly erased by the desert wind. Reno dismounted. "I'm here, Control. Nothing on my half, either." He unstrapped his helmet, worked his jaw, and spat an epithet into the dust.

"I am detecting no high-energy readings in the test area," Hikita interrupted. "The Jet Car is not off-course. It is not _on_ the course." There was a long pause as he swallowed. "I do not read the high-energy particle spray I would expect if the Overthruster had failed catastrophically, either."

Reno leaned against the rock wall. That was a relief, but a small one. It just meant that the Overthruster hadn't exploded; it didn't answer any questions.

"What would have happened if it had?" New Jersey asked. He tilted his visor up, squinting against the sunlight.

"A release of particles moving at near-lightspeed, and an energy discharge equivalent to a suitcase nuclear device. No radioactivity, but a significant explosion." Hikita's voice was clinical, heavy with forced calm.

New Jersey was still tentative. "So, wouldn't we have detected seismic vibrations? Sounds like that might almost be enough to crack the mountain."

"Definitely would have registered as seismic activity," Big Norse broke in. "I'll call up the observation station in El Paso."

New Jersey crouched next to one of the old tracks, nearly faded. "Professor? Can I ask a question that might be obvious, even if I'm not seeing it?"

"Of course."

"When the Overthruster phases the Jet Car out, what keeps it on the level? I mean, if the mountain's not stopping it, going forward, what stops it from falling through the ground?"

Reno's eyes widened. It had never even occurred to him to wonder about that.

Professor Hikita sounded hesitant. "Once he's phased into the Eighth Dimension, there is a parallel surface there that keeps the Jet Car from falling. At least, that appeared to be the case from the recordings on previous trials."

New Jersey nodded slowly, the helmet bobbing. "And what would happen if there were a landslide or a cave-in in that Eighth Dimensional territory?"

"Then the Jet Car wouldn't be at the right level to exit at the planned location," Hikita answered. Reno could hear him nodding.

"But to disappear _completely_ from our scopes like that . . . " Big Norse's voice was tight.

"He'd have had to drop suddenly and far, am I right?" Reno didn't like where this was going.

New Jersey was still pursuing it, though. "Unless there was a, a substance that blocked transmission."

"You're suggesting that Buckaroo fell into an Eighth Dimensional lead mine?" Reno asked, eyebrows cocked behind his helmet visor.

"I don't know," New Jersey answered, shrugging. "I just - I'm trying to find an explanation that works with the data we have. I'm a physician, not a physicist."

Big Norse interrupted. "Guys, I need you to come back to Mission Control and regroup with us. If you're right, Jersey, we'll need to call Perfect Tommy and get the rest of the team down here." She took a deep breath. "We may have to try and mount a rescue mission."

"Now you're talking," Reno agreed, climbing back on the bike.

\---

It had turned into quite a caravan - Jo in her Jeep in the front, Henry's tow truck carting the mud-and-moss-covered Jet Car behind it, Carter bringing up the rear. Buckaroo was riding with Jack, having stated that he needed to be where he could see his vehicle more than he needed to be close to it.

Jack was a little bit disappointed - Buck was going to see the other two vehicles pass through the hologram projection on the bridge first. Still, it would be interesting to watch the newcomer's reaction. They turned left off the main road; Buckaroo leaned forward as the Jet Car wheeled after the tow truck, then settled back as it made the turn cleanly.

"Relax. Even if it did hit the shoulder, there, all it'd do is knock some of the mud off of the undercarriage," Jack pointed out.

Dr. Banzai nodded, his face still radiating seriousness. "But when you find yourself in a hole, it's a good idea to stop digging. Even if you've traded your shovel in for a trowel."

Jack couldn't think of a humorous response to that. They lapsed back into silence as the tall pines jogged past them. It was, at least, a fairly comfortable silence, as these things went; Jack wasn't feeling the nervous pressure to fill the empty space with small talk that he usually would. Something about Buckaroo was setting him at ease. Maybe it was that Banzai seemed imperturbably calm, despite being stranded with a busted vehicle in a strange state and, apparently, a strange time.

Jack would never have believed that last part if this weren't Eureka.

They came around the bend in the road just before the gorge. Jack watched Buckaroo take in the "Road Out" sign, consider it, and say nothing.

Jo's car hit the bridge and disappeared. No reaction, but maybe Buck couldn't see it.

The two trucks and the Jet Car vanished. Buckaroo's eyes widened, but he said nothing.

Then they were through. Buckaroo blinked, glanced around at the much-improved bridge, and then nodded once, as if confirming a hypothesis. "Three-dimensional holographic projection. Not bad."

Jack chuckled. "Scared the crap out of me the first time I went through it." The huge satellite dish loomed over the treetops.

"I'd have been startled if we were the lead car, too." There was something slightly conciliatory about Buck's voice, almost as if he were apologizing for not being spooked.

Jack inclined his head slightly, not quite a nod. "I'm getting the feeling that you're a lot more used to this sort of weird science stuff than I was before I came here."

"Oh, yeah," Buck agreed, peering out the window at the grounds, fascinated by some of the rooftop structures.

They pulled up to the security station. The guard on duty - it was Costigan today - smiled. "Heya, Carter. Dr. Deacon filled us in. We're printing up a visitor's pass for Dr. Banzai; the magnemometer is running a little slow, but it'll be ready in just a minute."

"Fine," Jack replied, and submitted to the flash retinal scan. They did the same to Banzai on the passenger side. Jack heard a tiny alarm going off in the guardhouse.

Costigan stepped back in, glanced at the screen, and shook his head slowly. "Just like Henry said, no record of this guy's existence anywhere." He tapped the screen twice. "No Social Security, no state ID records, nothing."

Banzai leaned over to speak out of Jack's window. "There wouldn't be any in this state. Check New Jersey or New York."

The guard chuckled. "Dr. Banzai, our system automatically checks every state in the Union, as well as Mexico and the provinces of Canada."

"Really? That fast?" For the first time, Buckaroo seemed actually impressed. "That's quite a computer, then."

"Only the best here at Global." Costigan handed a pass and a clip to Jack. "Make sure you keep that tag on at all times, please, Dr. Banzai. Our security system will become very tetchy with you if you don't."

Buckaroo looked at it with detached curiosity, then clipped it to the collar of his shirt. "Thanks," he added, looking the security guard directly in the eye and flashing a brief but dazzling smile.

"No problem." Costigan smiled back, and relaxed just a fraction. He pressed the button that raised the security gate and waved them on through.

Jack clicked the radio unit on. "Jo, which lot are we going to? We got delayed a bit at the gate."

"I'm in Von Neumann Lot. Henry's backing the truck around to get that big honkin' thing into one of the vehicle bays." Lupo paused for a moment. "Stark's already here. Should I sic Henry on him, or wait until you make it around?"

"No, Henry can start filling him in," Jack answered. "We'll be there in just a minute." He put the radio mike back on its hook and debated warning Dr. Banzai about Nathan Stark. As they came around the corner of Building Three, he decided against it - anyone who could not only talk Dr. Babajanian into letting him borrow his phone, but cajole him out onto the porch and engage him in conversation, clearly had a way with people. Maybe he'd charm Stark the same way.

Jack pulled up next to Jo's car. Stark was standing with his back ramrod straight, arms folded, glaring at the Jet Car as Henry gestured, talking animatedly. Jack frowned - usually Stark had pretty loose body language, even when he was angry.

"Thanks for the ride," Buckaroo said, unbuckling himself and sliding out of the Jeep. He jogged over to the Jet Car, obviously concerned more about it than whatever conversation Henry and Nathan were having.

"And here's Dr. Banzai," Henry interrupted himself. "Dr. Buckaroo Banzai, this is Dr. Nathan Stark. He's the one of our top scientists here, and a former director of Global Dynamics."

"Good to meet you," Banzai said, face all seriousness again. He extended one hand towards Nathan, who slowly unfolded his arms, shook Buckaroo's hand once, and crossed them again. Buckaroo turned back to the Jet Car, and Nathan's glare deepened to a scowl.

Henry picked his explanation back up. "There are two different issues here. One is that the vehicle has a bent rear axle, which will be very simple to fix as soon as we can cast a new one that matches the wheel base, and a damaged fuel intake line to the left-hand jets. I could have fixed those at the shop."

"Then why didn't you?" Nathan's voice was sharp, even for him. "I don't see what possible good can come from bringing a tinkerer and his out-of-control vehicle to a secure facility." Henry stiffened a little at "tinkerer;" Buck didn't visibly react.

"Because of the second issue," Henry continued. "This vehicle is equipped with a harmonic inductor."

Jack watched Nathan actually recoil at that. At least it broke the stiffness; now he was flat-out pissed. "A _what_?"

Buckaroo turned back, slightly confused. "It's called an Oscillation Overthruster."

"That's your name for it," Henry acknowledged, "but it was invented here at Global in 1987, and the research team called it a harmonic inductor." He looked faintly embarrassed. "You have to admit, it's a better description of what it actually does."

Buck's expression didn't change. "How so?"

Jack stepped forward. "Hey, maybe someone can explain what it does to me? I heard Dr. Banzai's explanation back at the crash site, but I still don't understand exactly what it's for."

Nathan glanced at Jack, and his expression shifted from anger to condescension. "The harmonic inductor was developed as a means of transmitting electromagnetic signals through the local chronoton field."

"The what?" Jack glanced gratefully at Jo, who had fallen on that grenade for him.

"Chronotons are - well, they don't actually exist, at least not in the same sense as other particles, but you can think of them as the fundamental particles of time." Henry glanced back at Stark, who shrugged at the oversimplification. Nathan continued, "It turns out that the chronospatial constant is too high to permit temporal harmonics to be used for signal propagation."

Buckaroo nodded. For a moment, he looked like he was going to add something, but Henry shot him a warning look.

"In fact, what was occurring was that messages weren't being sent in either a timewise or a spacewise direction. For a while, we thought they were being dissipated in an electromagnetic form we weren't familiar with, but we realized after two trials that they were still being broadcast - just not in our usual four-dimensional space."

"Right. You must have been sending them into the Eighth Dimension," Buckaroo supplied.

Nathan jumped slightly at the interruption, and glared at Dr. Banzai. Jack's eyes widened - he'd never seen Stark so jittery. "No, but they were being sent into one of the open dimensions of string theory. We constructed a large harmonic inductor to try to read the extradimensional radiation we were receiving, but all we got was static - we couldn't make any useful information out. Then, Dr. Glass decided to attempt to use the inductor to send a robotic probe into the other dimension. It made the transition successfully, but we lost both the probe and that version of the inductor - it never made it back." He stuck one hand in his pocket and faced Jack directly. "Walter Perkins was one of the junior members of that team, by the way."

"Ah." Jack flinched slightly. Something about the memory of Perkins's end-of-the-world machine gave him a sense of deja vu, but he couldn't quite make out why.

Allison came striding up behind Stark. "Sorry I'm late; I was on the phone with General Mansfield. Henry, what have we got here?"

Henry turned to Buckaroo. "Dr. Banzai, this is Dr. Blake, the head of Global Dynamics."

Buckaroo took one step away from the Jet Car and extended a hand to Allison. "Pleased to meet you." She shook it cautiously.

Nathan jumped in. "What we have here is an illegal experiment in dimensional physics, attached to a couple of toy rockets and a pickup truck."

"Illegal?" Buckaroo turned towards Stark, his face nearly blank. "There's nothing illegal about the Oscillation Overthruster. Or about the Jet Car, as long as it doesn't go over the speed limit on public roads."

Nathan's lip curled. "After the probe was lost, we discovered that there were localized chronomagnetic disturbances produced by the harmonic inductor, at least when it operated on solid matter instead of photons. It was put on the national no-build list. So, yes, technically it is illegal to operate one." He rolled his eyes dismissively. "I suppose it's not illegal to construct one that doesn't work."

"I'm pretty sure this one worked at one point," Jo added, speaking more to Allison than to Nathan. "It came out of a sheer cliff face."

Allison's expression darkened. "You're sure? It couldn't have, say, teleported to just in front of the wall?"

"Tire tracks right up to the base of the rock wall," Jo answered, gesturing with one hand vertical and the other mining the wheel marks.

"Wait, a harmonic inductor shouldn't allow you to pass an object through solid matter," Allison objected, turning to Nathan.

Stark turned to Jo. "You recorded the scene, I assume?"

"Yup." She pointed at her Jeep. "If you can loan me a terminal, I'll download it for you."

"That's precisely what the Overthruster was designed to do," Buckaroo broke in. Allison turned towards him, startled. He narrowed his eyes slightly at her reaction, and then continued, "The greater part of the effect isn't the chronospatial one, it's the electromagnetic field suppression reaction."

Nathan scoffed, "A harmonic inductor doesn't suppress electromagnetic fields; it just forces them into phase with each other."

"That's not quite - " Banzai stopped himself. "I think I need a blackboard for this explanation."

"A blackboard? Why don't I get you a couple of stone knives to go with that?" Nathan growled, edging closer to Banzai. Jack watched the hand in Stark's pocket clench into a fist, and wondered if he needed to intervene. Watching someone annoy Stark more than he did was a new experience, but the novelty wasn't worth having to deal with a fistfight.

Henry saw it, too; he edged between the two scientists as Buckaroo fell back a step. "At any rate, the power supply for the inductor - or the Oscillator, whichever you want to call it - is also damaged, and we'll need to go over its circuitry. That's why I had it towed here." He took off his cap, wiped his forehead, and put it back. "I'll need some time to go over it. And since this is potentially a violation of federal law - an entirely inadvertent one," he emphasized, pinning Nathan with a stare, "we'll need to document it carefully before we attempt to send Dr. Banzai back to his own time."

"Wait, there's time travel involved, too?" Allison broke in. "That's not supposed to be possible, either."

"We seem to be accomplishing several impossible things before dinner, if not breakfast," Banzai added, carefully studying Nathan from the side.

Jo stirred. "Hey, Beverly's still out of town, isn't she? Where are we going to put Dr. Banzai up?"

"We'll find someplace." Jack caught Henry's eyes and tilted his head back. "Why don't I take Dr. Banzai to the employee lounge and see if we can figure out someplace for him to spend the night, while you fill Nathan and Allison in on the rest of the situation?"

"Sure. I'll join you in a little bit." Henry nodded slightly, and mouthed "thanks," before adding, "Oh, and could you send Fargo out here with the 3-D scanner? We need to get a complete recording of the Jet Car, here."

"No problem." Jack turned back to Jo. "Why don't you go back to the office and start the incident report? We're not going to be able to finish it until these guys do whatever it is they're doing here."

She grimaced. "Sure, send me to do the paperwork." But she shrugged and headed towards her car.

Buckaroo reluctantly left the Jet Car's side and joined Jack as they headed towards the main entrance. "I appreciate you doing this for me," he said softly, glancing back towards Henry as he pointed through the vehicle's window.

"No problem," Jack responded. "I don't know what's eating Nathan, though. I mean, he's generally ugly to me, but not like that. I've never seen him act that threatening before, at least not without a reason."

"Maybe he has one we just can't see," Buckaroo said, shrugging.

\---

A squirrel scampered nearly soundlessly between two tall redwoods, the wind whistling between the high needles. The ground here still smelled strange, full of human and machine and the stuff they spilled on the ground that tasted of rock and smoke. The small mammal dodged around the gouges in the dark, wet earth made by a wide set of tires screeching to a halt.

In each of the tire tracks, the first thin green slivers of new blades of grass poked through the tiny black crumbs of loam, reached for the tree canopy like verdant spears, and stretched, in a few seconds, effortlessly upward.

The squirrel looked back; the tracks had disappeared. Fortunately, confusion was normal for a rodent, and quickly forgotten.

\---

"It's absolutely fabulous, given the materials limitations you were working under," burbled Fargo. "I mean, if you changed the flare cones to an iridium-titanium alloy and boosted the fuel efficiency, you wouldn't have to change another thing; it would practically take off for orbit from a horizontal position."

Buckaroo smiled patiently. "It's really not meant for atmospheric flight. Although," he mused, "maybe the Seminole KId would be interested in a remote version that had a short-range rocket mode." He plucked a pen from his inside shirt pocket and began doodling on a napkin.

The lounge at the front of the GD canteen was quiet except for Fargo's excited babbling. Henry had sent him in to let Jack know that his work on the Jet Car was going to take longer than he thought; they were bringing in a high-pressure water jet to scour the muck of the undercarriage so he could get a clean scan and then measure the axle for a replacement. The young scientist had already been excited by the vehicle itself; he was fawning over Buckaroo like he was a rock star.

Banzai, in turn, seemed both amused by Fargo's antics and somehow reassured by them. At least, he was taking the fanboying completely in stride.

"Who's the Seminole Kid?" Fargo was leaning so far across the table he was practically climbing on it.

"One of the Hong Kong Cavaliers." Banzai looked up. "They're my band."

"Your band as in a merry band of outlaws, or your band as in musicians performing onstage?" Fargo asked, eyes wide and sparkling. Jack shifted uncomfortably and hoped Fargo wasn't going to scare their guest.

"Both, but I was referring primarily to the latter." Buckaroo plucked another napkin from the holder. "In fact, we have a show scheduled for tomorrow night. I'll have to make sure I'm back in time - if we cancelled on Artie, I'd never live it down." He didn't seem concerned.

"What sort of music is it?" Fargo asked, but before Buck could answer, Henry came around the corner and waved them over. The three of them stood up from the table and jogged over to join him.

"Jack, was Nathan acting strangely earlier?" Henry asked, leaning towards the sheriff carefully.

"Only if being angrier with someone for just existing than he usually is at me is unusual," Jack replied, nodding.

Henry pressed his lips together and exhaled noisily. "He - Jack, it was almost like I had to remind him that the Jet Car was still there periodically. He didn't want to see it, didn't want to talk about it - he almost refused to admit it existed at one point." Fargo wordlessly offered him a napkin; he took it and wiped a streak of mud and grease from his cheek. "And Allison was acting as if she'd forgotten it, too, at one point." He glanced at Buckaroo. "Dr. Banzai, that overlay-of-perception effect you were describing earlier - could it work in reverse, as a cloaking effect?"

"It shouldn't," Buckaroo said slowly. "It should only be a micro-level effect; at the macro-level, normal perception should swamp it completely."

"It didn't affect us that way," Jack pointed out. "Or Fargo, or Jo."

"Or any of the technicians operating the pressure cleaner," Henry agreed. "But why those two? Nathan worked on the harmonic inductor project, but Dr. Blake hadn't even arrived in Eureka, so it can't be related to that, can it?"

"Well, we could bring Walter in and find out, but getting him out of the temporal anti-reversal field might be tricky," Jack said, trying to think whether that was even legally possible.

Fargo looked disappointed. "I can't see why Dr. Stark would have such a negative reaction to the car, or to Dr. Banzai. I mean, this is a great research opportunity for all of us! Just think, a dimensional traveler with such a huge knowledge base, and his own band on top of that!"

"Time-traveler, not dimensional-traveler," corrected Jack.

Fargo looked puzzled for a moment. "No, didn't I tell you? I checked all the records for the entire last century - there's no Buckaroo Banzai recorded as a US citizen anytime during that time-span, much less one as prominent as he is." The young scientist grinned up at Buckaroo. "He's not from an earlier version of our world; I'm guessing he's from a parallel timeline."

"Wait, Buckaroo's your legal name?" Jack blurted, then flushed slightly as he realized he'd said that out loud.

"Yes," Banzai replied, with no sign that he minded or even found the question out of place. Jack relaxed a smidge.

Henry was shaking his head, hard. "Fargo, do you have any idea of the power requirements for a cross-dimensional timeline transfer? Time travel is difficult enough."

"Time travel isn't technically supposed to be possible," Buckaroo added quietly. "The chronospatial constant is too high to permit it at any energy level."

Henry suddenly looked very, very nervous. "Strictly speaking, that's not true. It's too high to permit matter transfer, but a pattern, ah, a state of being connected to the same chunk of matter, _can_ be propagated backwards in time." He wiped fresh sweat from his forehead and glanced at Jack. "In fact, if the chronospatial constant were a few hundredths of a unit lower, transmission of actual matter, rather than just information or energy, would be possible; you'd have to create a temporary build-up of chronospatial flux at a high rate of relative velocity to the target - "

Fargo had a faraway look. "Dr. Banzai, what is the exact value of the chronospatial constant?"

Buckaroo blinked, as if he expected Fargo to know that already. "Point nine five three five eight."

Henry turned, his head canted slightly. "No, it's 0.5081."

Fargo's eyes blazed in triumph. "And that's why you have different names for the harmonic inductor. It really does work differently in Dr. Banzai's universe." He took a deep breath and dropped into rapid-fire lecturing. "In a universe with a high chronospatial constant, a resonance field would act in a spacewise direction, shifting you dimensionally but not temporally, in the direction of what Dr. Banzai is calling the Eighth Dimension. If a universe had a really low chronospatial constant, like below 0.3, it would shift you primarily in a timewise direction, back and forth along your own timeline, and maybe along parallel timelines created by changing your original one." His hands made a right angle. "Think of it as describing the angle at which the harmonic oscillations propagate, with zero being exactly timewise and one being exactly spacewise."

Jack's head was beginning to hurt. "Then we'd be somewhere around forty-five degrees, right? What would that mean?" Henry gave him a surprised grin, as if he were both surprised and pleased that Jack had even gotten that far.

Fargo's gaze was elsewhere, staring into that space where hackers stored code not yet written. "It wouldn't be parallel to our own space _or_ our own time. It would send you - elsewhere." The vertical hand turned to make an acute angle with the other, and then fluttered off. "At an angle to our timeline, and to any that ran parallel to our own."

"So once you'd expended the energy to leave your own timeline, there wouldn't be a huge power drain!" Henry continued, nearly shouting. "But it _would_ require energy to enter a new timeline - "

"Or return to the one you came from," finished Buckaroo. "But how - "

"Somehow, in your shift to the Eighth Dimension, your angle of chronospatial travel relative to your home timeline must have been changed," Fargo kept going. "And when you encountered this timeline, since it works differently here, you couldn't continue traveling through solid matter, so it threw you out into the nearest open area and drained your electrical cells."

"But I should be able to leave here the same way, as long as we can get the Overthruster recharged and working again." Buckaroo nodded. "You're sharp, Douglas." Jack thought Fargo was about to pass out for a second; he smiled like Sarah Michelle Gellar had just offered to autograph his arm, and wobbled slightly on his feet.

"But how will you get back to your own timeline?" Jack asked.

Buckaroo rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "If I'm aimed in the right direction, I expect the same thing will happen - as soon as I'm 'in' the correct universe, the rules will snap back and I'll just be out-of-phase again. I might need some sort of homing beacon to orient the Jet Car correctly."

"And I'm pretty sure we can get it working again," Henry added. "Figuring out how to aim you is going to be the more difficult part."

"And convincing Allison to let you use a technically illegal device," Jack added.

"We'll cross that bridge after we get through repairs." Henry flexed his fingers. "I have the metallurgy department fabricating some replacement parts. We won't be able to get anywhere with the Jet Car until they're done. Jack, can you take us into town for dinner? The canteen here isn't a very good example of Eurekan fine dining." He raised an eyebrow playfully.

Jack grinned back. "Yeah, let's hit Cafe Diem. We can all fit in my car." They headed out.

As soon as they were out of sight, one of the crumpled napkins on the table they'd vacated uncrinkled itself and lay flat on the table. Starting from the end, the scribbled writing on it began to disappear, stroke by stroke, until the last of the ink vanished as if it had never been written down.

\---

"I don't think it'll make much difference once the Jet Car is repaired," Fargo was arguing as they passed the dry cleaner's. "It's not like the vehicle itself is burning fuel when it's between worlds."

"It probably is; it's just not providing any forward thrust," argued Henry.

"And the car does burn fuel in the Eighth Dimension; if it didn't, it would coast to a stop - there's matter there that will cause friction," Buckaroo added.

Jack pulled the Jeep to a stop in front of the sheriff's office. "So basically, you're saying that we need to find you enough jet fuel to refill your tank, too."

"That really shouldn't be a problem," Henry reminded him. "I have jet fuel at the shop. We'll just have to mix it up or down to match the energy requirements of his engines."

"It's essentially standard airplane fuel." Buckaroo looked vaguely curious. "What sort of shop is it?"

"Vehicle repair for pretty much the whole town. Cars, tractors, planes, rocket sleds, you name it." Henry grinned at Buck's raised eyebrow. "Come on, you've seen what sort of company town we are."

"I have." Buckaroo gave him a small grin back. "And I have to say, I'm impressed. I don't think there's a Eureka in my home timeline, but if there is, I'll have to go looking for it."

Jack opened his door. "I'm going to go get Jo. Be back in just a minute."

The office was oddly dark. Jack looked around; was there a bulb out?

"Hey, over here, sorry," Jo called. Jack turned around and saw her hanging a bulletproof vest back in the armor closet. His forehead furrowed. "What's up with the vest? Why didn't you call me?"

She shook her head. "False alarm. The supermarket had several bottles explode, and thought someone was shooting them." She handed him a soaked uniform shirt, one of hers. "Smell that."

He raised an eyebrow, but obeyed before she got mad at him. The other eyebrow went up, too. "That's got to be about forty proof."

"Something like that. That was what was in one of the grape juice jars that exploded." Jo took the shirt back, fingering it with a disappointed expression. "All the ones that blew up were like that - fermented until the alcohol content would be enough to kill the yeast. Some of them were just disgusting; others probably would have made pretty good wine."

"Good enough to knock a man on his backside." Carter could smell traces on Jo now as well. "But what would cause that? I assume they weren't just keeping stock past its expiration date."

"Nope. And it wasn't all one shipment, or all from one manufacturer; I checked." Lupo ducked into the bathroom and turned on the sink. Over the running water, she called "And then I got back here, and the light switch for the entry hall isn't working. I changed the bulb, which, by the way, shouldn't burn out for another ten years anyway, and that didn't help."

"I'll ask Fargo to take a look at it after dinner." Jack debated checking out the grocery store himself, and then decided it could wait until they got Banzai squared away. "We're taking Dr. Banzai to Cafe Diem for dinner; you want to join is?"

"Sure!" She flashed an oddly bright smile at him. "What's the story with him and the car that couldn't stay on the road?"

"Henry thinks they can fix it, and he and Fargo came up with a theory for how it got here to begin with." Jack studied Jo's expression; her eyes were wider than normal. It reminded him of the puppy-dog look Fargo had been wearing all afternoon. "Hey, you okay?"

Jo paused. "I'm not sure, honestly." She shook her head once. "Look, can we keep this between the two of us, as a professional thing?"

"Sure." Now Jack was puzzled; Jo normally kept secrets pretty tightly.

She shifted her jaw slightly. "Is there any way we can check Dr. Banzai for, I don't know, unusual pheromones or something?"

"What?" Jack wasn't expecting that. Then his expression cleared. "Wait, are you saying - "

"I'm reacting to him like a schoolgirl with a crush on a favorite teacher," she said in a rush. "I've been thinking about him all afternoon, and hoping I'd get to see him again before the big brains at Global got him sent back to his own time." Her nose wrinkled in disgust. "And that's - not me, Carter. I don't react like that, and once I realized that was what was going on, I could have kicked myself."

"He does seem to have a lot of personal presence," Jack admitted. "Fargo's in full-on man-crush mode, himself."

"Oh, God, he would be." Jo ran a hand down her face and grimaced again.

Jack shrugged. "I'll run the pheromone question past Henry later. Maybe that would explain why Nathan was acting like that."

Jo nodded, her features smoothing slightly. "Yeah. Like he smelled competition from Dr. Banzai. That was pretty harsh, even for him."

Pointing somewhere across the street, Jack asked "Are you okay with being around him at Cafe Diem, then, or do you want to stay here?"

"No, I'll be fine," she answered. "Now that I have some explanation for why it might be happening, I think I can keep it under control." She crossed over to the locker and removed a clean jacket. "Let's not keep him waiting."

\---

"Gone? He can't be gone," protested Perfect Tommy, both hands pressed tight to his flawless hair. "He still owes me twenty bucks after the Big Ice Incident, for one thing." He was whistling in the dark. Losing Banzai would mean the end of everything, for him and for all the Cavaliers.

Reno's image on the screen shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah. We're trying to get a bead on what actually happened. Big Norse and New Jersey have a theory they're kicking around, and Hikita thinks it's worth checking out, but we don't have a way to test it yet." His hand filled the screen as he adjusted the camera on his end. "Big Norse wants you and Penny down here before we start making decisions."

"I gotcha." Tommy's voice dropped in both pitch and volume. "Is it Xan? We haven't heard from him in a few months - it's about time our luck ran out on that front."

"Most of our Xan-centric theories would have involved an explosion that the seismic recorders would have caught. Buckaroo just - fell off of the radar. Vanished, whoosh." Reno reached for a coffee cup offscreen, leaned over, and took a noisy gulp. "If Lizardo weren't dead, I'd say this was more his style."

Penny stepped out from the doorway she'd been hiding in. "We know Dr. Lizardo is dead. Is Whorfin?" She shook her head. "I mean, I'd love to believe that creep who almost killed me was gone, but that wasn't ever his body, the way it was for Bigbooté and the others, was it?"

Reno grinned despite himself. "Should've known we couldn't put one past you, Priddy lady. No, as far as we could ever tell, Whorfin never came through from the Eighth Dimension physically. He was just imposing his mental patterns on Lizardo through a sort of forced-synch telepathy." He sobered again. "You think he might have survived the ship exploding? Had his consciousness hurled back into the Eighth Dimension?" Scowling, Reno added, "That's a terrifying thought."

Perfect Tommy tapped his fingers on the clipboard by the videophone. "Any disappearance in the Eighth Dimension, we have to at least consider whether the Lectroids are involved." His eyes snapped straight to the front as he made a decision. "But I don't think we can rule out Hanoi Xan yet, either. For all we know, he might have been able to construct an Overthruster of his own from the notes he stole from Lizardo."

Penny fixed him with a cocky glare. "So what're we going to do?"

Tommy rose to his feet. "You're going to pack a bag and tell Mrs. Johnson that she and Pinky are in charge of the place until we come back. With Buckaroo." He looked into the camera mounted at the top of the screen. "I'm going to grab Billy, and the three of us are going to Texas."

\---

A tree along the main boulevard of Eureka shivered slightly, as if it were being shaken by unseen raindrops.

One of the Baker twins paused on the sidewalk and looked at it again. The leaves trembled, fluttered, and began to turn red.

As he watched, the leaves colored, began to brown at the edges, and fell lightly to the ground. The bare branches continued their silent shuddering as buds swelled at their tips. Suddenly, the tree burst into bloom, white blossoms covering the tips of each branch like snow. Tiny yellow-green leaves peeped from between the flowers. A shower of white petals drifted down to coat the fallen leaves, as the tree filled out with bright new greenery.

The Baker twin harrumphed. "Seth's going to get himself in trouble again one of these days." He stumped off down the street as the tree drew itself taller, a year's new growth passing in the span of minutes.

\---

Fargo pushed open the door to Cafe Diem and held it for the rest of their party. "You're really going to love it," he promised Buckaroo, who looked around the diner, taking in every detail. Henry and Jack followed, with Jo trailing behind them, watching Banzai carefully.

Vince looked up from behind the counter. "Sheriff Carter! I haven't seen you all day - you skipped your Vinspresso this morning." His eyes fastened on the newcomer; Jo and Jack watched his reaction. Vince's eyes widened slightly; his pupils dilated, his face flushed, and he stammered for a second. "And-and-and what would your name, be, sir?"

"I'm Buckaroo Banzai." Buck watched Vince's face for any sign of recognition and got none. "Are you the owner of this establishment?"

"That's right." Vince regained his equilibrium. "What'll you have?"

Buckaroo glanced across the counter. "Where's the menu?"

"There isn't one." Vince's smile was a kilometer wide. "You name it, I fix it."

""Really," Buckaroo asked, glancing at Henry, who smiled and nodded. Returning his gaze to Vince, Banzai replied, "_Miso-shiro, tsukini soba,_ and _matcha._"

"With or without sake?" Vince replied, obviously a little disappointed that Buckaroo hadn't come up with something more difficult.

"Without. There's too much work left in the evening to start unwinding," Banzai answered. Vince nodded and headed for the kitchen; Henry cleared his throat noisily.

"Oh, sorry. What would everyone else like?" Vince took the rest of their orders with slightly glazed eyes. Jack caught Jo's attention and jerked his head to the left; they stepped away from the group.

"Diagnosis?" Jack asked.

"Vince went from zero to smitten in less than three seconds," Jo said, leaning forward to punctuate her earnestness. "It's _got_ to be pheromones."

"Hey, dad," Zoe said from Jack's left shoulder. "Who's the hottie?"

"Don't you start," Jack grumbled.

"Seriously," grumbled her new boyfriend from behind her. Jack's frown deepened; he wasn't at all fond of Hair Boy - what was his real name? - Lucas.

Jo was more tolerant. "He's a visiting scientist, and his name is Dr. Banzai. What are you guys doing here?"

"Vince is having an open mike night," Zoe answered. She gestured towards the fireplace, where several other Tesla High students were assembling an electronic drum kit on a small riser. "The Charmed Particles are playing a couple of songs, and since Pilar's their sound girl, we're here to cheer her on. And them," she added as their guitarist, an Asian girl with her hair dyed dark blue, shot her a hard glare.

"I see." Jo squinted at the kids as they set up three microphone stands. "That would explain why the dinner rush is here a little early."

Henry ambled over. "So they weren't satisfied with the talent show?"

"Nope," Lucas replied. "Jedediah has dreams of going national. I told him he'd be better off auditioning for American Idol, but . . . " He trailed off and shrugged.

"Order's up," called Vince. Jack, Jo, and Henry returned to the counter and retrieved their plates - spaghetti with meatballs, grilled whitefish, and a club sandwich, respectively.

Banzai inspected his soup and noodles appreciatively. He looked Vince directly in the eye, bowed slightly at the waist, and said "_Itadakimasu_" in a voice that suggested he meant it.

"_Domo arigato,_" Vince replied, leaning perhaps a little too close as he returned the bow.

As the group dug in, Pilar stepped up to the mike. "Good evening, everyone," she started, "and welcome to the first monthly Cafe Diem Open Mike Night. Anyone who wants a turn can sign up at the soundboard," she said, gesturing towards her seat by the small square of sliders and dials, "and it can be any type of performance - spoken word, poetry, song, music, whatever. And now, to start us off, please welcome the Charmed Particles!" The kids launched immediately into a poppy cover of "Harlem Shuffle."

"They're not bad," Jo noted as they finished the song and shouted an unintelligible question at Pilar. "They could use another couple of practices as a group, but they can play their instruments."

Henry nodded. "I was helping the school out for the talent show - they had a little trouble with the holographic decorations - and I heard them perform then. We have some really talented musicians in Eureka."

"Mathematical ability and musical ability tend to coincide," Banzai observed around a mouthful of noodles. He slurped and set his chopsticks down. "The best musicians in the Hong Kong Cavaliers are usually the ones who have the best grasp of calculus." He dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. "Except for Big Norse, but that's not her fault."

The lead singer, a tall boy with stringy hair dyed bright orange, leaned into his mike. "We're going to do another, and then let the next performer take the stage." He turned around and said something to the drummer that sounded like "easy this time," and then counted off, "One, two, three, yeah!" Jack didn't recognize the song, and the lyrics sounded like they were in French, but it had a danceable beat.

Fargo had barely picked at his grilled chicken sandwich. He shoved it away with an apologetic glance at Vince. The chef didn't notice; he was staring at Buck with lovesick eyes whenever he wasn't scanning the crowd for refills or new orders.

The band finished with a flourish and bowed to the crowd. "We're the Charmed Particles, and we'll be back later to close out the show, and maybe for another couple somewhere in the middle. Enjoy the open mike night, Eureka!" Jed shouted, waving as if he were in an arena. The other musicians began shucking their instruments.

Buckaroo slid off his stool and strode over to the makeshift stage. He stopped next to the blue-haired girl. "Hey," he said quietly, "could I borrow your axe? I forgot to bring mine."

She started to say no and stopped cold. Jack watched her face go from outrage to interest to hero-worship. "Okay, that's starting to creep me out," he murmured.

"He's famous where he comes from, isn't he?" Zoe asked, having drifted over from Pilar's soundboard.

"How do you mean?" Jo asked, her mouth awry.

Zoe shrugged. "It's something you pick up, living in L.A. Some people are famous and they don't want to be noticed, and some people are famous and want to be too much, and you can taste the anxiety. But some people - they're just supposed to be famous. They wear their fame, instead of it wearing them." She nodded at Buckaroo as he adjusted the guitar strap and slid it on. "He wears it like a ring you forget you have on. It's not something he was striving for; it's just part of him."

"Yeah," Jack said, looking at his daughter with gratitude. "That's it exactly. I just hadn't put my finger on it."

"I still think it's pheromones," Jo mumbled as Buckaroo stepped to the central mike.

"Good evening, Eureka. Usually, I play clubs a little bigger than this," Buckaroo said, reaching down the mike stand and lengthening it a few inches, "but I'm really pleased to be here. I think you guys will like this one." He gave the guitar an experimental strum, took a step back, and closed his eyes.

The riff that sprang from the speakers was two-thirds Chuck Berry and one-third Jerry Lee Lewis, with a dash of James Burton. The drummer stopped at the edge of the riser, turned around, and dropped back onto the stool, kicking in four bars into the intro. The bassist and keyboardist exchanged a glance, nodded to each other, and returned to the stage, too, picking up the bass line implied by the chords Buck was hammering out. He turned around, grinned at them, and turned back to the mike.

"_Oh, you're never done with learning,_  
When you've got so much to do;  
When there's chemistry and physics  
And biology, too.  
Some people skip their classes  
And some others rot their brains,  
But if I gave up on Science, well,  
I think I'd go insane!"

It was catchy, old-time rock 'n' roll, and Jack found himself bobbing his head and swaying in his seat. Jo and Zoe were doing much the same. Vince was staring as if he were entranced. And Fargo and Henry -

\- what _were_ they doing? They'd abandoned their plates and were edging towards either side of the room, strange smiles on both their faces.

"_When Science is your mistress,_  
It's useless to be tough.  
She's not impressed with muscles,  
Or with money, or with stuff.  
But when she comes a-calling,  
With her strangeness and her charms,  
What can a helpless student do  
But take her in your arms? Oh,

And Henry and Fargo threw themselves towards the stage. More specifically, Henry did two hand flips, a double backflip, and an acrobatic leap that landed him on the stage immediately to Buckaroo's right. Fargo was a little less athletic; his maneuver was a somersault followed by a cartwheel and a hop with a 180° turn that landed him on Banzai's right. They both spun on their heels, perfectly synchronized with the backbeat, and grabbed the two remaining mikes on the stage.

"_No, it's never enough_  
To know just a little,  
No, it's never enough  
To know just a little,  
It ain't never enough,  
To know just a little -  
Knowing a little bit  
Is never enough."

Henry's baritone voice dipped below Buckaroo's strong tenor; Fargo's own tenor slipped above it. They bracketed him in perfect harmony, swaying in unison.

Jack's jaw dropped. "I didn't know Henry could sing like that."

Jo shook her head as if she were waking up. "I didn't know _Fargo_ could sing like that."

Zoe frowned. "How the hell do they know the lyrics? Has Dr. Banzai sung this for you already?" Jack mutely shook his head as the three adults on the stage grapevined right, then left.

"_And if Science isn't your amour,_  
There's others to be seen.  
There's history, psychology,  
and languages are keen.  
Literature's a picky girl,  
and art is pretty hot,  
But don't forget mathematics-  
She's the queen of all the lot!"

They launched into the chorus again, with a one-two-three-kick routine. Buck never missed a note, his fingers sliding around the strings. The bassist and keyboard player were grinning like a madman and a madwoman. Henry looked happier than Jack had seen him since Kim died. Fargo looked like he'd seen God.

The audience was loving it. All of the high school kids were out of their chairs and dancing; even Zoe and Lucas were bobbing in time. A few of the adults had gotten up to dance; the others were swaying in their seats, clapping along with the rhythm.

"_Well, they say a little knowledge,_  
It's a dangerous thing,  
That you should drink it deeply  
Or forget that sacred spring -  
I say that you should drink it down  
Wherever you may find it;  
You're better off with just as much  
As you can get your mind in!"

"That didn't rhyme," Zoe murmured weakly as they dove into the chorus again. Buckaroo windmilled on the guitar as Henry and Fargo crooned into the mikes and waved jazz-hands in the air. Buck turned to the drummer, nodding at her once, and they came around again.

"_No, it's never enough -  
To know just a little -_"

Each line was punctuated with a flam on the drum kit, all the instruments falling out in between except the keyboardist, who was running the keys like Jerry Lee himself.

"_No, it's never enough -  
To know just a little - _"

Fargo and Henry whirled around on their heels, tossing the mikes above their heads; Jack gave silent thanks that they were wireless.

"_It ain't never enough -  
To know just a little - _"

The bassist turned to the drummer and raised her head on the downbeat.

"_Knowing a little bit_  
Is never enough,  
No, never, never,  
Never enough!"

They walked it back, rolled it out and hammered it down. The impromptu band ended on a wild smash of a chord and a cymbal crash to match it, then bowed in unison.

Buckaroo took the mike again. "Thanks, Eureka! I hope you liked it."

The crowd went berserk, screaming, clapping, leaping to their feet. They wouldn't let them off the stage; Buckaroo kept bowing, thanking the audience, until finally he went to the edge of the stage and began shaking hands as the high schoolers slipped off the back end of the riser. Henry and Fargo followed them, smiling like they'd won the lottery.

Fargo was weaving a little as he walked. "Is he drunk?" Jo wondered aloud.

"On adrenaline, maybe. Imagine having anxiety issues like he does and suddenly being on stage like that," Lucas noted.

Jack darted forward and steered Fargo into a chair. "Here. You need something to drink after that." Both Fargo and Henry were sweating.

"Oh, my God, wasn't that _awesome_?" Vince scuttled around the edge of the counter with a pitcher full of water and two empty glasses. "Fargo, you've been holding out on us! I didn't know you could sing!"

"I was . . . inspired," Fargo giggled, clutching at one of the glasses as Vince poured.

"That was pretty impressive for an impromptu performance," Jack noted, watching Henry carefully.

Henry nodded. "Honestly, I'm as surprised as you are, Jack." He accepted the second glass and drained half of it. "Inspiration is as good a word for it as any."

Zoe shot Jo a wry look. "I don't think pheromones can explain _that_."

Buckaroo hunted out the drummer in the crush of the room. "You guys wouldn't happen to know 'Rocket 88,' would you?"

\---

If Dr. Babajanian had looked out his window and down his driveway, he would have seen the fog rolling off of Lake Eureka slowly coiling into rolls as it slid down the hillside. The cool mist left a coating of moisture over everything it touched; droplets dripped from the stems of the grasses and trickled down to the damp soil.

Two of the rolls of fog swirled, tightened, and solidified under the moonless sky. The dampness brushed past two figures, stooped and staring. They clutched briefcases in their hands, and looked up at the light from Mikhail's lab.

Fortunately for him, his conversation with Dr. Banzai had sparked him to a new experimental set-up. He never looked out his window, never spared a thought for what the fog was doing in the valley below the house.

The two figures turned away from the house and began following a scent they barely knew.

\---

Reno drummed his fingers on the table idly. "So are we brainstorming a plan, or do we have a plan and we're brainstorming how to get it going?"

Professor Hikida and Big Norse shared a glance. "Well," Big Norse started, "we have a couple of theories, but I don't think we've gotten to the 'plan' phase yet."

Penny snapped the blinds shut. "Start with the theories. We'll take it from there."

The conference room at the Salt Flats Motel, Restaurant, and Convenience Store was long and narrow, and smelled like decades of accumulated cigarette smoke. The scent of the tamales from the restaurant failed to overwhelm the staleness. Reno would have just as soon stayed at the test site bunker, but Perfect Tommy had insisted that he would do much better thinking someplace that had air conditioning.

The professor turned to a list he'd made on a legal pad, holding it up so everyone in the room could see it. "The facts of the case are: First, that Buckaroo made a successful transition to the Eighth Dimension using the Oscillation Overthruster, as he has on the previous trials. Second, that approximately two point seven seconds after transition, all signals from both the Overthruster and the Jet Car ceased. Third, that no particle spray was detected from the test course at any time during or after the trial. Fourth, that no seismic vibrations of a magnitude greater than those that would be caused by the passing of a truck the mass of the Jet Car were detected during the trial. Fifth, that visual inspection of the test site has revealed no sign of either Buckaroo or the Jet Car, nor any evidence of any intrusions by unauthorized persons of any kind." He tapped the list with his pencil. "Have I left any critical information out?"

Penny peered at the legal pad. "What about above the site? Any planes or rockets that could have scooped Buck up?"

Big Norse shook her head firmly. "None. The last air traffic on the site was the helicopter that dropped Dr. Banzai off four hours before the test. There's currently a hold on any passing local flights, but really, only the army base ever flies anyone over that part of the flats anyway."

Penny dropped heavily into one of the folding chairs. "All right, what've you got for a theory?"

Professor Hikita nodded in New Jersey's direction. "The first theory is that the Jet Car was forced off a straight horizontal path through the Eighth Dimensional terrain, and that Buckaroo has failed to transition out because he is below the surface, from our perspective." He flipped the page on his pad. "It would explain his disappearance, but perhaps not the suddenness of it. If it is true," Hikita continued, "then Buckaroo will be in need of assistance. The Jet Car would have run out of fuel approximately forty minutes after transition, unless Buckaroo shut off the engines. The Oscillation Overthruster's electrical fuel cell could continue operation for up to eight hours, possibly more if there were another source of hydrogen or if it were not having to run the internal electronic components of the Jet Car."

"And his timer for that runs out . . . ?" Perfect Tommy made a circular gesture.

Big Norse sighed. "Approximately the time you landed at the airport in El Paso. However," she continued, holding one hand up, "it's possible that Buckaroo could go through the transition _in reverse_ to conserve power."

"Wait, that would mean he was fully inside the Eighth Dimension, wouldn't it?" Penny asked. Billy nodded behind her, as if he had been about to ask the same question.

"Correct," Hikida concluded. "At that point, he would not be co-contiguous with our world, but he could reactivate the Overthruster and re-enter the transitional state."

"Assuming he could get back up to speed," Perfect Tommy pointed out. "We've never gotten the Overthruster to work at a standstill."

Billy folded his arms across his chest. "I don't like it. What's the other theory?"

Big Norse looked uncomfortable. "The other theory is that the perception field effect of the Overthruster failed, and both the Jet Car and Buckaroo lost cohesion. They'd have become particles in a probability stream - neither here, nor in the Eighth Dimension - until someone observes them and collapses their state vector."

"Which would be rather hard to do, seeing as how they were inside a mountain at the time," New Jersey observed, unclasping his hands. Big Norse nodded unhappily.

"Let's work on the first theory," Penny argued hastily. "If that were what had happened, what could we do to get Buck back?"

"Well, if he has enough fuel and power, we'd need to signal him a safe place to re-transition," Perfect Tommy offered. "If he knew where the surface was, he could just reverse the polarity on the Overthruster again."

"But what if he's out of fuel or power or both?" asked Reno, reaching for a glass of water.

Professor Hikida nodded. "We would have to communicate with him to find out."

"Great," Penny demanded. "How do we do that?"

Big Norse took the pad from the professor and flipped to the next page. "Unfortunately, we've never completed a second Overthruster; we still only have the prototype and one of Sandra and Masado's early versions." She glanced aside at Perfect Tommy. "Did you bring that one with you?"

"It's in the luggage," Tommy shrugged.

She scribbled something in the corner of the page and continued, "The Professor and I think we can cobble together a version of the Overthruster main circuit that can pass information back and forth, but probably not solid matter. If Buckaroo's on the other side waiting for us, we should be able to patch through a weak radio signal." She rubbed the eraser of her pencil against her chin. "If he's out of range, he can at least use that as a homing beacon. Hopefully, he'll be in range and still have enough power to transmit." She spread her hands, palms up. "If our luck is really good, he can tell us how to proceed from there."

Reno stood up. "And what if he can't? What if he's there, but injured or unconscious? What if his radio's out of power?"

New Jersey looked across at Perfect Tommy. "Then we'll have to build another Overthruster to take one of us across to look for him."

Penny folded her arms. "Damn right. But how long will that take?"

The professor shrugged. "With Buckaroo here, I would say two days if we can get materials. Without his brilliant mind and steady hand?" He shrugged. "Who knows?"

"We'll do it," Penny insisted, her voice loud and harsh.

"Of course we will," Perfect Tommy said in a much calmer tone. "But let's get on the transmitter idea first. If Buckaroo's luck is good - and it usually is, you have to admit - then he'll have either conserved power or found something to burn for juice, and he'll be able to tell us how to get him out."

New Jersey and Billy both rose to their feet. "Tell us what you'll need," Billy said to Big Norse.

She gave him a tiny grin, flipped to the next page of the pad, and tore out a sheet of paper with a long list already written out.

\---

The vehicle bay back at Global was nearly empty except for the Jet Car; a few robotic drones on treads sat at the edges of the open space. Buckaroo crouched beside the Jet Car, clearly wishing he were the one currently under it instead of Henry; Fargo hovered next to Banzai, trying to look helpful.

"Variable-tension spanner," called Henry; Buckaroo passed him one of the tools on the tray next to him. Jack was about to suggest to Fargo that they should leave the other two scientists alone to finish their work when his phone rang.

"Jack?" Allison's voice asked. "Have you seen Henry anywhere? He's not in his lab, and Spencer says he's not at the shop, either."

"He's down here in Vehicle Bay, ah, Two," Jack answered.

"Really? What is he doing down there?" Dr. Blake sounded annoyed.

Jack frowned. "He's working on Dr. Banzai's jet-engine truck."

"Who? Oh, right, that guy from earlier. They're not done with that yet?" Allison sounded vague, as if she didn't really remember their earlier exchange.

"No. They're just finishing up the repairs on the car itself - they got the fuel line fixed, and Henry's installing the replacement axle for the rear left wheel now," Jack explained, "but they won't have the fabber parts for the, uh, the harmonic inductor, until tomorrow morning - the ones they got tonight were off-scale."

"The - harmonic inductor? Jack, Henry wouldn't order parts for a harmonic inductor; they're _illegal_." Allison sounded like she was explaining things to a child.

"Uh, yeah, can I have Henry call you back?" Jack hated taking advantage of the standard assumption of his ignorance, but this was getting awkward. "Maybe I'm misremembering the conversation."

"You must be. Sure, as soon as he's done, have Henry call my office. I'll be here for another hour at least." Allison hung up without saying good-bye. She seemed rushed.

Fargo was watching him, blinking. At least he wasn't staring at Banzai. "That was weird. She didn't remember?"

"Eavesdropping is rude, Fargo." The younger scientist shrugged; Jack nodded and continued, "But, yeah. She didn't remember either Dr. Banzai or the car until I reminded her. She must be really busy today."

"Not really." Fargo pursed his lips and glanced upwards. "Her schedule was lighter today than it has been for the past week or so. Not that she didn't have plenty to do today, but it was mostly routine stuff except for the conference call with Mansfield."

"Huh," said Jack. His phone went off again; he snapped it back open. "Carter here."

"Jack, I need you back in town," Jo said in a here-we-go-again tone. "Taggart has something he wants us to see, and he wants both of us." She sighed. "He says you'll recognize it when you get there."

"I'll be right there." Jack tucked the phone away again. "Fargo, tell Henry to call Allison when they're done with the axle, and then have him give me a call. Buckaroo's staying out at my place tonight."

"Oh, S.A.R.A.H.'s going to love him!" Fargo squeaked. He recovered quickly. "Sure, I'll make sure they get the message. Should I let her know that company's coming?"

"Yeah, you do that, Fargo." S.A.R.A.H. occasionally reacted badly to unexpected guests. Jack put his bomber jacket back on and headed out the smallest of the bay's doors.

\---

Jo had out one of the super-high-powered flashlights; it wasn't quite dark yet, but dusk was fading into night, and fast. Jack pulled the Jeep up behind hers and hopped out, fumbling for his own flashlight. "What have we got?" he asked.

"A fine bit of trouble, is what we have 'ere," Taggart said from the brush; Jack managed to smooth his jump into something more like a double-take. Jo just grinned. Taggart smiled, too, his teeth the only clearly visible part of him in the shadows, and added "C'mon, then - you'll want to see this for yourselves."

"Why do they always say that?" Carter groaned, following the nearly-invisible hunter down a nearly-invisible path in the foliage.

Without warning, his flashlight hit a patch of chalky white; he stopped, holding one hand out to warn Jo, then edged forwards carefully. She followed suit, moving between the shorter trees like something native to the woods. Suddenly Jack understood why she and Taggart had nearly become an item; they really did have more in common than he'd given them credit for.

"Whaddayeh think of that?" Taggart flicked on a light of his own and panned it back and forth across the space in front of them.

An area about twelve feet in diameter had been reduced to crumbling white powder. Most of it had collapsed into heaps, but in a few places it still stood in roughly treelike shapes. At the edges, saplings and shrubs simply ended at the edge of the circle, powdery residue clinging to the sudden ends of branches and twigs. A few leaves and branches had fallen just outside the circle, still intact after the flora they belonged to had withered away.

It looked remarkably familiar to Jack. The combination of the view and Taggart's proximity made his neck hurt.

Taggart obviously remembered, too. "Just like old times, isn't it, Carter?"

Jo's eyes widened. "Cobb's house."

Jack nodded. "When Walter's gizmo was spinning off fast-time bubbles. I don't remember what they called them, but - "

"But this is what they looked like, or at least their aftermath," Taggart nodded. He gestured upwards. "Except those were spheres, weren't they? This," he waved at the circle, "got at least one full-sized tree."

"Maybe it just fell straight down as the trunk was disintegrated, into the area of effect," offered Jo.

"Possible, but I'd've expected a tree that tall and off-center to fall sideways." Taggart swung his light in the direction of the anticipated tree trunk. "None of it landed outside, as far as I can tell."

Jack pointed his lamp straight up. "It wasn't a cylinder, either." He pointed; several overhanging branches were still intact.

"So, either a sphere and it kept the tree from falling outside its borders, or a cone." Jo scanned the ground. "Any sign of a local cause?"

"None that I could find." Taggart shrugged. "Now, I haven't braved the circle itself yet."

"Don't," Jack warned. "It looks like the effect's stopped, but we don't know for sure if it's safe." He let out a short huff and rubbed the back of his neck. "I think I need to call Allison."

For some reason, it took two tries for his phone to connect. "Blake here."

"Hey, Allison. This is Jack. Um, remember the case where we met?"

"When Walter Perkins was trying to leave town in a hurry." He could hear her frowning. "What about it?"

"Well, Taggart seems to have discovered an area that looks like it was affected by one of the accelerated time thingies." Jack looked around again as Jo took out a camera and began taking crime scene photos. "Same effect, anyway." For some reason, thinking about Walter's machine was really making his head hurt. Did he really have that many physical memories of that case? Maybe it was just the dust.

"Oh, great." Her heels hit the floor in the background. "I'm sending Nathan right there to take some radiation readings, Jack. Don't leave until he gets there, okay?"

"Wouldn't think of it."

"Thanks. Bye." She disconnected abruptly.

Jack raised an eyebrow at Jo. "Okay, I'm supposed to stay here until Nathan shows up. I don't think there's anything we can do directly."

Jo finished her circuit around the affected area with the camera. "Do you want me to stay?"

Jack shrugged. "Your choice. I think it's Global's problem now."

"Which means it'll be our problem again by 3 am." Jo rolled her eyes and shook her shoulders out. "I'll go back to the office and download the photos. Call me if you're not coming back there." She paused. "Good luck with Stark; I hope he's in a better mood."

Taggart hung around, making occasional comments about the wildlife that had been caught in the area or barely escaped it, until Nathan arrived with a pair of devices that looked like an oversized radar gun and a parabolic microphone covered in Mylar. "Here, Carter," he said as he climbed out of his car, "make yourself useful." He handed over the first one.

"How do I use it?" Jack looked for a trigger; there wasn't one. but there were several buttons on the back.

"Press the green button in the center panel, and then sweep the area with it. It'll record any radioactivity or other unusual radiation; you don't have to do another thing." Nathan regarded him with his usual smugness. "And don't worry if you can't make sense of the readings; I don't expect you to."

"Right." Jack led the taller scientist down Taggart's deer trail to the circle of ash. Nathan let out a low whistle as Taggart played his light over it again.

"Well, you were right to call us," Nathan admitted. He raised the silvery dish and began aiming it at points inside the circle, outside it, on its edge. Jack pressed the green button and began scanning the circle, starting at the far edge. Numbers appeared in red pixels across the base of the device; Jack hadn't even realized there was a screen there.

Ten minutes passed in near-silence. Finally, Nathan looked at the readout on his scanner - green pixels, instead of red - and said, softly, "Huh."

"Good huh or bad huh?" asked Taggart.

"I'm not sure. I need to run these readings through our computer. I suspect that they almost match the ones from the Perkins incident, but I doubt they're identical." Stark turned Jack's device towards him, and nodded. "There's definite chronomagnetic radiation here. I don't remember that being part of the Perkins incident report."

Jack tried to remember the conversation from that afternoon. "Could it be from the Jet Car?"

"The what?" Stark turned to him, his eyes narrowed.

"From Dr. Banzai's vehicle." First Allison, now Nathan.

"Oh, that crackpot from earlier?" Nathan scowled. "His pile of junk couldn't light a match, much less produce chronomagnetic radiation."

"Henry said his harmonic inducer worked before its power supply blew," Jack said cautiously.

"Then he's an - " Nathan stopped himself and stared at Jack, lines appearing across his forehead. "How do you know what a harmonic inducer is, much less that it could produce chronomagnetic radiation?"

Jack looked him directly in the eyes and kept his voice level. "Because you and Henry explained it to me at about two o'clock."

Nathan's mouth twitched at one corner. "And your memory over one afternoon is better than mine, you're claiming?"

"How else would I have a clue what chronomagnetic radiation even was?" Jack replied, trying not to sound confrontational. Stark made that very, very difficult sometimes.

Nathan's eyes flickered and then fell. "You have a point," he admitted. He inhaled deeply and then released it again. "I don't trust that guy, Carter. I don't know how he's got Henry fooled. Fargo I'm less surprised about." He shook his head. "But I don't even want to think about him. When he's not right in front of me, I've forgotten him completely. Henry had to remind me earlier, too." Nathan met Jack's eyes again. "I don't think it's just psychological."

"Jason Anderson's memory flasher?" Jack's head hurt even more now; it was getting hard to think. "Or something like that?"

"I don't think so. It's not that I'm losing time." Nathan's brow furrowed deeper. "It's just - that guy - " He looked at Jack with a hint of desperation. "What was his name?"

Jack's eyes widened. "Buckaroo Banzai." If _Stark_ was having these sorts of memory issues . . . what did that mean about Allison's trouble remembering Banzai earlier?

"It's such a ludicrous name; how can I remember something like that?" Nathan was starting to get angry again. He stopped himself, took another deep breath. "How could I forget it?" For a moment, he almost looked - vulnerable.

"Maybe I should pick him up from Global for the night before you go back," Jack suggested, handing the second scanner back to Stark.

Nathan's back stiffened. "He's still _there_?"

\---

Two shadowy figures stumbled around in the dark. "It was here," grated one of them in a vaguely metallic voice. "I can smell it."

"Can feel it, too." The other one, taller and thinner, swayed slightly as it climbed on top of a redwood root, one foot on an old scar, now almost covered with shaggy bark. "Vibrations from our former prison." A cone dropped from a high branch, perhaps dropped by a squirrel; both bipeds dropped to a crouch, scuttling for cover.

The shorter one dropped one prehensile appendage into the grass. "Something _was_ here." A faint sticky residue coated its digits. "But it must have been days ago. We're late."

"The scent trail is too recent for that." The other one straightened up, slowly. "Perhaps he came back here, looking for something."

The first one combed through the grass, and came up with a half-buried pebble of glass. "Thrown through the windshield, maybe?"

"Possibly." The taller one leaned into the wind. "We've come the wrong way. We should have split up."

"This trail was stronger." The stouter one climbed back over the redwood root. "He must have gotten the vehicle operational. Sniff for tire tracks."

They shambled off towards the road and into the night, ducking away from the light of the low crescent moon as it filtered through the high needles and into the mist.

\---

"Welcome home, Sheriff Carter. Dr. Fargo mentioned you'd be bringing someone with you. Who's your guest?" Buckaroo stopped short in the bunker's foyer and hunted for hidden speakers in the ceiling as S.A.R.A.H. swung the heavy door closed behind them.

Jack grinned. The look on Banzai's face now was pretty close to the one he'd sort of hoped to see on the bridge that afternoon. "S.A.R.A.H., this is Dr. Buckaroo Banzai. He's from a parallel universe, and he'll be staying with us tonight until we can get him shipped back home."

"Good evening, Dr. Banzai. I'm very glad to meet you. Sheriff Carter doesn't bring enough friends home to visit," the house said politely, with a hint of nagging hurt.

"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance," Buckaroo said to the ceiling. He turned to Jack, eyes still hunting for the speakers. "Is that Douglas?"

"This is a smart house; Fargo programmed it, and he gave it its temp-track voice. He hasn't managed to hire on any professional vocal talent yet." Jack looked directly at one of the panels he knew concealed a camera. "No offense, S.A.R.A.H., but I think he's aiming too high."

"None taken. But prefer my voice the way it is," the house answered.

Buckaroo followed Jack's gaze; the sheriff wasn't surprised when the scientist found the camera panel instantly. "You mean, it's an artificial intelligence?"

"That's correct," S.A.R.A.H. answered without waiting for Jack.

Banzai took a step towards the panel. "A Turing-complete one?"

"We don't know for sure. We've never done a full-length Turing test," S.A.R.A.H. replied. "However, we have established that I can pass for a 40-year-old human female in Internet Relay Chat and various instant messenger systems for periods of two hours at a time without provoking suspicion."

Buckaroo's fingers brushed the wall. "I'll have to tell Billy. He'll be excited to know that it's not only possible, it's possible in his lifetime."

S.A.R.A.H. seemed to find this flattering. "Is there anything I can get you, Dr. Banzai? A beverage, or snacks?"

"I'm fine, thank - " Jack raised an eyebrow at Buckaroo, who paused and reconsidered. "Actually, Sarah, would you happen to have any Dragon Well green tea?"

"I do," she answered proudly. "Would you like a cup or a teapot?"

"Just a cup would be fine," Banzai answered. Turning back to Jack, he added, "I think I could get used to living in the future. Are all the houses in Eureka like this?"

"No, S.A.R.A.H.'s one of a kind," Carter answered, realizing as he said it that, for all his complaining about the bunker, he really was fond of S.A.R.A.H. and her amenities.

"You're a lucky man," Buckaroo murmured, wandering into the dining room. He turned half-around. "Is there a shower on this floor?"

"The bathroom's right over there," Jack pointed. "There are extra towels in there already, but let me get you a bathrobe."

"There's a terrycloth bathrobe that should fit Dr. Banzai in the second drawer of the linen cabinet," S.A.R.A.H. informed them. "Also, Dr. Banzai, your tea is ready - it's in the cubby on the refrigerator."

"Thank you very much." Buckaroo headed for the kitchen. Jack turned back towards the stairs. "Speaking of the linen cabinet, S.A.R.A.H., where do we keep the extra blankets?"

\---

"Henry!" Nathan thundered into Vehicle Bay 2.

Fargo yelped and nearly fell off the stool he was perched on. Henry flinched and just barely managed not to bang his head on the undercarriage of the Jet Car; he grabbed the edge of the frame and pulled himself out from underneath, the wheels on the creeper squeaking quietly.

"Henry! There you are," Nathan shouted, all but running across the flat expanse of concrete between the interior door and the small repair bay. He wasn't in one of his old suits, but he was still dressed more formally than the other two men, in pleated charcoal slacks and a blue Oxford shirt. And yet, his sleeves were rolled up, his collar just a bit askew, his shoes scuffed and caked with dust. For Stark, he looked - ragged.

Henry pushed himself up to a sitting position. "Nathan, what's the matter?"

Stark came to a stop just in front of Fargo. His eyes raked the area, and Fargo fell back a bit. "Henry, there's - " Nathan started, and then stopped himself. He reached forwards and patted the side of the Jet Car awkwardly. "Fargo, what's this?"

Fargo went saucer-eyed. "That's . . . the Jet Car. It's Dr. Banzai's vehicle."

Stark scowled, and forced himself to focus. "Right. That pile of crap." He closed his eyes. "Damn it, I was just looking at it; why can't I remember what it looked like?"

Henry climbed to his feet, and put a hand on Nathan's arm. "Are you all right?"

"No." Stark rubbed his face with one broad hand, opened his eyes, and blinked twice. "Apparently, I find this thing so offensive that I blank it out when I'm not looking at it." His voice slid down a couple of notes. "It, and its driver."

"How can you find Dr. Banzai offensive?" Fargo chittered. "He's . . . " He trailed off as nuclear fire leaped in Stark's eyes.

Henry leaned in, edging between Stark and the car. "Nathan, I realize that he rubbed you the wrong way somehow, and I admit some of his theories are . . . esoteric, even for us, but his work is solid. This," he tapped on the Jet Car's hull, "is an impressive piece of machinery for 1987; in fact, if you ignore the materials issues, it's impressive even for now. It's comparable to what I might come up with, if I were limited to what I could shape directly from sheet metal or scrounge from junkyard stock."

"I _know_ that," Nathan complained. "This is a completely irrational reaction on my part. It's irritating." He sighed, and turned slightly away, as if the Jet Car hurt his eyes to look at. "The only good thing about it is that it makes Carter and Taggart less annoying by comparison."

Henry pressed his lower lip against his teeth. "Does Dr. Banzai remind you of someone? A traumatic memory of some sort?"

"If so, it's so deeply repressed I can't call it up." Stark shook his head sharply. "At any rate, that's not why I came down here." He held up a small data screen. "Take a look at this."

Henry called up the first photo and let out a low whistle. Fargo came up at his left elbow. "That looks like Sheriff Cobb's house did, when the space-time continuum was experiencing discontinuities."

Henry glanced at Fargo, then fixed Nathan with a serious look. "Chronomagnetic radiation?"

"In amounts detectable with an unmodified hand-scanner." Nathan toggled the screen to the next image. Henry took it from him and flipped through the next few in rapid succession. Stark pointed. "Taggart found this on one of his deer trails. That mound there is, as far as he can tell, the residue of an entire tree."

Henry looked back towards the Jet Car. "So when he entered our reality with an operational harmonic inductor - "

"He must have created vortices in the local space-time." Nathan grimaced fiercely. "If he's not a charlatan, he's a menace, and we need to get rid of him."

Henry added, "And the safest way to do that is to send him back where he belongs. By repairing his inductor and getting him pointed in the right direction."

"How do we know reactivating his inductor won't further damage the local continuum?" Nathan demanded. Fargo looked as if he had an idea, but he cringed under Stark's withering glare.

"Well, at a minimum, it seems reasonable to conclude that this anomaly is contained." Henry pointed at the edge of the dust-pit on the screen. "It wasn't still growing, was it?"

"No," Nathan admitted, relaxing slightly. "It was stable. Whatever caused it had concluded."

"So, if we send Banzai home, it seems likely that whatever imbalance in the local chronosphere his presence is causing will resolve." Henry turned back towards the Jet Car. "And if that turns out not to be the case, the removal of the harmonic inductor from our timeline can't hurt more than it helps."

"You're probably right," Stark muttered. Henry almost popped his neck facing Nathan again; it had been a very long time since Stark had admitted that about anything. The former head of Global looked tired, almost deflated. "I'm going to go home and get some sleep. When I get back here in the morning, I want you, Fargo, and Donovan in my lab working on a model for predicting the anomalies while we repair this - thing," he trailed off, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of the Jet Car.

"Sure. I'll bring the scans of the power supply so we can work on that, too - kill two birds with one stone," Henry offered. His voice was startlingly gentle, a tone Fargo had never heard him take with Stark before.

"Fargo, e-mail Zane and let him know. Eight o'clock sharp," Nathan barked, and her turned on a heel and stalked out.

Fargo turned to Henry and blinked. "What's going on?" he asked, plaintively.

Henry shook his head again. "Something more than just simple timeline-jumping. But I couldn't tell you what, yet." He dropped a steady hand onto Fargo's shoulder. "Send Zane the message and then head on home. The axle's repaired, and the adhesive on the fuel line has to dry before we can thread the hoses back around it."

"Okay," yawned Fargo, fumbling for his laptop.

\---

The lights in the bunker flickered alarmingly as Perfect Tommy switched on the micro-welder. Reno looked up at the bulbs and wanted to growl. Instead, he turned to Big Norse. "Think we got enough juice out here to do this?"

"There's nothing wrong with the power supply," she offered in a voice that was just flat enough to be reassuring. Immediately, her eyebrows drew together just enough to worry him again. "The wiring here, on the other hand, is another matter entirely."

"It won't blow." Perfect Tommy tested the micro-welder on a piece of copper wire and examined the results through a jeweler's loupe hinged to a pair of sunglasses. "I checked the fuse box. Unless we need to run an electrical heater, we should be good."

"I don't think that'll be necessary." Reno had checked the weather report before they left the hotel at 4 am; today was supposed to be like the previous week had been - dry, hot, and cloudless. "We might want an A/C unit, though."

"The fans will have to do," Professor Hikita said. "Variations in temperature while we're converting the unfinished Overthruster could result in catastrophic failure."

"Yeah, but so could sweating on the equipment," Penny riposted. "Why couldn't we just rent a room at the dive we were sleeping at?"

"Can't use this there, among other things." Perfect Tommy flipped the loupe out of the way and settled the shades firmly onto his nose. He picked up a circuit board, several glass tubes, and a nest of wire, and began running them under the micro-welder's flashing tip; a spatter of yellow sparks bounced off the sleeve of his linen jacket.

Reno dropped into one of the big wooden chairs with peeling paint that the Army dignitaries used when they came out to watch a test run. With Rawhide gone, he'd taken over the soft-science end of the Cavaliers' operations. Anthropology, sociology, psychology, history, literature - all that stuff, he could handle. With a little help from Big Norse and Billy, he could do tech writing, too; he'd authored most of the instruction manuals for the complex equipment back at World Headquarters. But he wasn't so good at the hard sciences, and he certainly wasn't an engineer. He hated feeling helpless, but there wasn't much he could do other than hold tools - this was a job for the hardware guys.

Professor Hikita shifted the pile of components on the big wooden table. "We'll need a better transmitter array, and a reception dish for incoming signals."

"I'm on it." Big Norse began deftly picking up pieces from the pile - some wire mesh, a brass hoop that looked like something a kid would make dream-catchers with, what looked like yellow LEDs. "How variable do we want our transmission frequency to be?"

"Not at all," supplied Billy. He looked relieved to finally have something to add to the conversation; Reno realized that their hacker wouldn't be much help, either, until it came time to wire in the integrated circuits. Still, he had a role in this rescue; he just had to wait for it. "We want to transmit on the exact frequency that the signal from Mission Control comes from, because we know that when last seen, the Jet Car could both receive and transmit on that frequency. It's the most likely one to work, and it's the one Buckaroo will be scanning for."

"But what if the - oh, wait, you're saying that if the Jet Car radio can't transmit on that frequency then it probably doesn't work at all." Big Norse curled a knuckle under her jaw and leaned on the table, one finger tapping at the corner of her mouth. "I see your point. I still think we should have at least a couple of backup frequencies, though, just in case."

"Then we need backup transmitters," Billy argued. "Once this one comes online, it'll do the most good if it sends a constant signal, so if Buckaroo has only intermittent power, he still can't miss it."

Hikita nodded curtly. "Construct it for constant transmission on our main frequency. If it does not work, we will already be on Plan B."

"You got it, Professor." Big Norse reached for a soldering iron. Billy went back to playing with a circuit breadboard.

New Jersey drifted in, dust coating his boots. He stamped twice in the doorway and kicked them off. "No sign of any change outside." He cleared his throat. "I did find these, though."

Reno kicked his chair back and jogged across the floor. Their cowboy physician was holding what looked like two shiny beads of black glass. Reno reached for one, thought better of it, and hunted in his pocket for a pair of gloves.

"I think they're harmless," New Jersey said with a slight frown.

"Better not take chances; you didn't." It was true; the doctor was still wearing his cycling gloves. Reno picked one up and held it to the light. Something floated inside, suspended in liquid.

"What are they?" he asked, straining to see more.

"I'm not sure, but I think they're biological in origin." New Jersey set the other one down in a bowl and put one of Penny's paperbacks on top of it. "The general structure suggests a sensory organ, like an eye."

Reno carefully slid the book back and dumped his in alongside the other one. He could have sworn it winked at him. "What good's an eye not attached to an optic nerve?"

"I don't know. Maybe they store information and play it back when they're plugged into a socket." New Jersey shrugged. "But the important thing is, they're not built using ordinary terrestrial biology."

"Let me guess - Lectroid?" Penny called across the bunker.

"The lady's got it," the doctor said, allowing himself a small smile.

"How did they - oh, crud, have they been hitching rides on the Jet Car during our speed trials with the Overthruster? Like that - thing?" Penny shuddered at the memory of the pod Buckaroo had plucked from the bottom of the vehicle after its first test; it had startled her during her first press conference with the Cavaliers, before she was officially part of the team.

"I don't know, but it's possible. Both of these were alongside old Jet Car tracks." New Jersey looked at the bowl nervously, and added a brick on top of the paperback.

Reno turned towards the door. It might not actually be useful, but it was better than sitting around here watching the science types work on Buckaroo's rescue and doing nothing. "I'm going to scout for more of those. Hit me on the radio if something comes up."

"We will." Big Norse and Billy exchanged a glance; Reno realized they were empathizing with his sense of uselessness, and bristled slightly.

"Okay. Be back in a bit." He grabbed his own helmet from the wall rack and headed for his bike.

\---

"You don't even know where we're going, do you?" The shorter, stouter figure squatted at the edge of the deserted highway. "I can smell too many trails to know if we're following the right one."

"We are." The taller one kept walking.

Dawn was slowly breaking over the temperate rainforest, and fog rolled between redwoods, down hillsides, and along the roads like a slow grey river. Land blended into sky, without a horizon. A crow called in the distance, defending its territory against unseen intruders.

"Admit it, we're lost." The first one trailed long, thin fingers across the asphalt. "Besides, how will we recognize him if we find him?" He sniffed at the morning mist, then wiped his nasal protrusion with the back of his hand.

"He'll be the only one who stinks of the Eighth Dimension. None of the rest of the monkeyboys even know it exists." The taller one waved vaguely off into the distance. "I can still smell it. It's not strong, but I can follow it. If you'd get off your backside, you would, too."

The sound of an approaching engine goaded the shorter one to his feet. "Here comes one now. Get off the road."

They scuttled to a bush on the embankment and crouched behind it. A pair of headlights turned the fog to spun gold before a silver sedan pushed through it, water vapor swirling in its wake.

Zane yawned. He never went in to GD this early. Well, not unless he'd stayed up all night to do it. He was tired, and he was cold, and he hadn't even had a chance to pick up a Vinspresso.

"Fargo'd damn well better have made coffee," he grumbled. His stocking foot pressed down on the accelerator as much as he dared - this fog was vicious this morning, like something out of a bad horror movie.

The morning mist closed again behind the car, marking turbulent vortices in the airflow. One twisting helix failed to calm down; it tumbled, turned, and writhed in place over a patch of pavement.

The shorter man stumbled out from behind the bush. "John, we're going to be late. The boss is going to kill us if we don't make drop-off." He brushed the droplets from the shrub's condensation off of the lab coat he hadn't been wearing before.

"Johnny, you have too little faith in the process." The taller man freshly wore a neatly pressed suit and had his hair in a ponytail. "Whoever this new scientist is that they've brought in, if he can compete with their usual talent, we have to see if we can poach him. We have it on good authority that they haven't made him an offer yet." One hand slid to a slight bulge in the side of the suit. "We have to make sure that they don't."

The shorter man blinked and sniffed. "What were we following earlier?"

"The road, stupid," John snorted. "Now come on. The car was a sign we're headed in the right direction."

"I hear their security is killer," grumbled Johnny. "Literally."

"Seriously, shut up, we'll be fine." John clutched the briefcase he certainly hadn't been carrying earlier and stalked off, following the sound of Zane's receding engine.

Johnny crouched down and ran his fingers over the asphalt. "Did we volunteer for this?"

"Oh, good God, what do you think?" John whirled on him and roared. "We're valuable human resources!"

"Something wrong with that phrase." Johnny looked at his hand and had a sudden wave of _jamais vu_. "I just - don't remember. Did we volunteer, or were we sent?"

"Does it really flipping matter? Get up and get moving, idiot." John waved the briefcase in his direction as if he were about to hit him, even though they were still a good six feet apart.

"Matters to me," Johnny muttered as he started walking.

The vortex rotated, unspun itself, and dissipated into the mist.

\---

"Good morning, Sheriff Carter," S.A.R.A.H. said as she chimed. The lights in the room were on, although not fully brightened.

Jack rolled over and groaned. "Second or third time?"

"Third. I'm afraid you really do need to get up now. There's a 42% chance you'll be called to Global Dynamics before noon."

"And I need to check in at the station first, or Jo will do the angry squinty thing at me." Jack rolled out of bed. At least the room was warm. "Is Zoe up yet?"

"No, I'll be chiming her second alarm in approximately five minutes." S.A.R.A.H. paused. "Dr. Banzai is already awake, however."

Jack blinked the sand from his eyes. "Yeah, he seems like he'd be an early riser." He tugged on a pair of sweatpants, grabbed a clean uniform from the closet, and stumbled towards the stairs.

He paused at the top. "S.A.R.A.H., you scanned Banzai when he came in, like you do everyone, right?"

"Yes. Should I not have?" The house sounded mildly worried.

"No, no, that's fine, actually. Did you, um, notice anything unusual about him?"

"He is carrying a mild chronoelectrical charge. Other than that, no."

"Wait, Henry and Fargo were talking about chronomagnetic radiation, but they didn't say anything about chronoelectricity." Jack wondered if this was one of those things that would be obvious if he were a physicist, or if this was strictly a Eurekan weird science thing.

"They're interrelated. A chronoelectrical charge moving through time causes a chronomagnetic field, and a rotating chronomagnetic pole would generate a chronoelectric current." S.A.R.A.H. kicked on a fan somewhere in the ventilation system; the hallway got fractionally warmer.

"So Buckaroo passing through time generates some chronomagnetic radiation all by himself?" Jack asked, hoping he got it this time.

"A very small amount. If he were aging at a different rate than the rest of the universe, the effect would be more noticeable."

"Okay. Thanks, S.A.R.A.H. Is the coffee started?"

"Yes. Shall I toast a bagel as well?"

"Wait until I get out of the shower, but yeah, that would be great." Jack finished ambling down the stairs as the sound of windchimes drifted from Zoe's room.

Buckaroo was standing in the middle of the living room in a white bathrobe, doing what looked like slow-motion dance moves. Jack watched for half a second before realizing those were _kata_ for a hand-to-hand style he wasn't familiar with. Carter wasn't bad at unarmed combat - he'd studied a little karate, and enough judo to impress some of his superiors when he was still a US Marshall. Jo was better than he was, but that wasn't surprising; she took hand-to-hand as seriously as she took her marksmanship.

Wait, no, he did recognize that move. The reason this looked strange was that it was a kendo form; Buckaroo was doing sword moves without a sword. He was also doing them at one-quarter speed, which emphasized their grace and the concentration they required at the expense of their practicality as combat moves.

He suspected that Banzai could do them equally well at full speed. Now that he knew what Buckaroo was doing, he could almost see the sword the scientist was visualizing.

Buckaroo turned and saw him. "Good morning, Sheriff Carter. You have one of the best sofas I've ever slept on."

"Tell S.A.R.A.H.; they're her furnishings. And feel free to have anything you want in the kitchen." Jack headed for the shower; it felt a little strange to keep watching now that he'd been noticed.

"Another cup of that tea from last night would be great," Buckaroo said to the ceiling.

"It's pretty awesome tea. Is Dad hogging the shower?" said Zoe's voice from the top of the stairway.

By the time Jack emerged, hair still damp, Buckaroo was setting a pair of plates inside the panel that folded out into the dishwasher. Zoe darted past him into the bathroom, clothes for the school day in hand.

"Your daughter is an excellent conversationalist," Buckaroo noted. "She mentioned you used to live in Los Angeles. There's a chapter of the Blue Blaze Irregulars there that I probably ought to visit more frequently."

"That your fan club?" Jack collected his coffee and that toasted bagel.

"More or less." Banzai gathered his clothes from the edge of the sofa. "Your house cleaned these for me last night. Between those two and your deputy, you must feel well taken care of."

"Yeah, I do." Jack was slightly surprised at the words, although they were true. "People in Eureka look out for each other."

"It seems as though they'd have to." Buckaroo stepped into his trousers and untied the bathrobe.

"It's been interesting working here, that's for sure." Jack had his coffee mug at his lips when the sound of shrieking metal rattled the walls. "S.A.R.A.H.?" he shouted, setting the cup down before he spilled it on himself instead of just the floor.

"Security camera two," she replied, her voice unnaturally calm given the unearthly noise. The south wall of the kitchen became a projection screen.

One of the metal shields that covered S.A.R.A.H.'s impressive defense system was surrounded by what looked for all the world like an outsized version of one of those mirror balls that you hang on the tree at Christmas. It was shiny and just faintly translucent, and the heavy plate inside appeared to be growing darker.

Buckaroo padded back into the kitchen, buttoning his shirt. He took one glance at the screen and muttered "Uh-oh."

"Do you know what that is?" Jack was trying to remember everything Henry had ever told him about force fields, and coming up mostly blank.

"Well, it could be one of a number of things," Banzai admitted, "but under the circumstances, I'd guess it's a differential time vortex."

"A what?" Jack asked, hoping that Buckaroo would react like Henry and not like Stark to the question.

S.A.R.A.H. spoke up instead. "A spherical area in which time is passing at a different rate than the surrounding space, causing a torque on the spacetime continuum immediately adjacent to it. I concur with Dr. Banzai's assessment; I am measuring significant chronomagnetic radiation from the affected area."

Buckaroo left the kitchen to grab his shoes and jacket, and returned in a heartbeat. "Sheriff, we need to get back to the Jet Car immediately. My unintended entry into your universe may have had unfortunate consequences."

The silver bubble suddenly popped, disappearing as if it had never been, which, Jack supposed, it hadn't - at least, not as a physical object. The metal shield underneath had corroded almost to disintegration; all that remained was a few flakes of rust.

"I estimate approximately 300 years passed for the laser cannon cover in the 58 seconds the vortex persisted," S.A.R.A.H. offered without prompting.

"Send that footage to Fargo," Jack said, grabbing his bomber jacket and heading for the door, Buckaroo right behind him. "And let him know we'll be at GD as soon as we can."

"It's a good thing it picked the security system instead of your car," Banzai noted.

"Don't give it ideas. S.A.R.A.H., door."

\---

"Okay, that's freaky," Zane mumbled as Fargo replayed the smart house's security footage on the wall-mounted flatscreen.

"It's damn near impossible," grumbled Nathan. "Is there a pattern to these fast-time incidents?"

"No, although the differential rate of speed seems to be increasing over time," Fargo pointed out. "The one the Baker twins reported was progressing at maybe a year every four or five minutes, not even enough to create that light-refraction effect. They didn't even realize it was a time compression at first."

"Is that the first one reported?" Henry asked, scribbling something on the markerboard in the illegible script that meant he was only marking things down to make them real in his mind, not trying to communicate them with anyone else.

Zane nodded. "So far." The terminal next to him chimed. "And the Sheriff and your visitor from another world just checked in at the gate."

Stark grimaced. "Does he have to be here? This is probably all his fault, you realize."

"He realizes that, too, I'm sure," Henry protested. "He'll want to help, Nathan. Besides," he pointed out, "you want to send him home, even if he's not the source of the disturbances."

"Yeah, yeah." Nathan squeezed his eyes shut and stretched his neck, as if it were stiff. "He doesn't belong here."

"I wish he did," murmured Fargo mournfully.

Nathan narrowed his eyes at the executive assistant. "Fargo, are you contradicting me?"

"Maybe a little?" Fargo ducked and grinned apologetically.

Stark stared at him for a moment, then turned to Henry. "You see? That charlatan's turned my own henchman against me."

"Wow, you're a henchman? I thought you were just a sycophant; you're moving up in the world," Zane said to Fargo, eyebrows raised. Fargo sniffed and declined to answer.

Henry kept scribbling. "Something about this equation doesn't look right." He grabbed an eraser, wiped it out, started again.

Nathan drifted over and stared over his shoulder. "You're sure about the four-dimensional seed coordinates?"

"I measured the spatial ones myself. There's a little slop in the temporal one; Banzai said there might be as much as a half-second play in the time recordings on the Jet Car's onboard electronics." Henry tapped the marker against the clear plexiglas of the board. "But that's not enough to cause this." He pointed at a coefficient in the equation. "Not only does that term keep blowing up in the fifth iteration, it's negative."

Zane swiveled in his chair to face the board. "Huh." He looked at the equation, then at the ceiling, then at his laptop, poking at a couple of keys. "Let's assume for the moment that it going nutso is a sensitive dependence issue. What would just its being negative mean?"

"Good question." Henry lapsed into thoughtful silence. Fargo began rattling notes into his own netbook; Nathan paced across the floor like a caged tiger.

They were still like that when the door slid open. Allison nearly shot through it, speedwalking over to the markerboard and facing her employees. Buckaroo and Jack followed at an easier pace; Jack looked worried, Buckaroo merely bemused.

"Have we made any progress on the time-bubble phenomena yet?" Allison rapped out, one hand on the edge of the markerboard as if she needed extra support, the other clenched into a fist at her side.

"A little." Henry indicated the half-finished equation on the board. Buckaroo stepped around Fargo, giving the young scientist a nod, and began studying the nearly illegible notes. Fargo looked up and beamed. Henry tapped the coefficient that was giving them trouble. "This doesn't make sense with the rest of the equation."

"That's derived from the position of the Jet Car in four-space when it arrived?" Banzai asked. Henry nodded, and added "It's negative, which isn't possible, and when we iterate the formula for each added dimension - "

"It'll expand out of proportion to the rest of the components." Buck picked up another marker and began jotting something underneath.

Carter cleared his throat. "If that were really what it was supposed to do, what would that mean?"

"Looking for a catastrophe, Sheriff?" Nathan turned to Jack with his usual look of mild disdain. "In this case, it means that the variable-time bubbles should have swallowed Eureka, along with most of the western coast, already."

"Which, fortunately for us, clearly hasn't happened yet," Zane added with a smirk. "So either the formula is wrong or we're miscalculating the coefficient."

"Or we're using the wrong seed values," Buckaroo said to the markerboard, and then turned to look at the new voice. For an instant, he froze; his eyes flickered to a succession of details on Zane's face in turn. Then he set the marker down, very slowly, and took a few steps towards Global's new hotshot. "I'm sorry, I don't think we were ever introduced." His voice was soft, and might have wavered for a microsecond.

"Zane Donovan." Zane reached for Buckaroo's hand and shook it; Banzai reciprocated carefully, as if he were afraid of disturbing something delicate. Zane noticed, but didn't say anything. "I'm the latest thing around here."

Buckaroo nodded. "Buckaroo Banzai. I'm not from around here at all." He gestured at the board. "But I'm guessing you knew that already. Did you grow up in Eureka?"

"No, they brought me here to make use of my enormous talents with a keyboard." Zane gave him a half-slanted grin and drummed his fingers across his home row. "I went to Yale for undergrad, but we moved a lot when I was a kid."

Buckaroo paused for a moment. "I'm sorry. You look very familiar. Your family name is Donovan, you said?"

"Yeah." Zane's eyes grew wary. "It's Mom's last name. They weren't sure that Dad was going to stick around at the time. I mean, eventually he did, but they didn't get together for good until I was four; I remember their wedding. They never legally changed my name."

Buckaroo genuinely looked pained for a second. "Thomas?"

Now Zane was really concerned. "How did you know?"

Buckaroo shook his head. "I think I may have made a mistake in my own timeline."

"Not something that happens to you often, I take it," Nathan sneered. Jack turned to look at him; there was an ugliness, a sense of revulsion, on Stark's face that even he'd never seen turned on him before. He hoped he wouldn't ever have to.

"No." Buckaroo either didn't pick up on Nathan's foul mood or was ignoring it. "I hope I'm wrong. Or, at least, not too late to fix it."

Henry and Fargo exchanged a glance that Jack had trouble reading. Fargo turned towards the markerboard. "Maybe we've got this coefficient in the wrong place. Could there be another term in the polynomial?"

Buckaroo turned back to the board; both he and Zane relaxed fractionally. He picked his marker back up. "No, that's not it." He reached over and erased one line of Henry's work with his thumb, and scrawled a line of numbers to replace it. "Try those as the seed value."

"But that's -" Henry and Fargo started simultaneously, then stopped. Henry nodded slowly. "That won't change the negative, but it makes the coefficient much more well-behaved." He began rewriting their function, then stopped. "But then there's a second set of - no, it turns into a composition of _two_ functions." He started jotting faster.

Nathan drifted back over, interested despite himself. "That would mean the hunk of junk in the vehicle bay isn't the source of our problem."

"Although it certainly destabilized the function when it arrived," Zane agreed.

Jack wondered whether he was going to have to ask. Fortunately, Allison did it for him. "So where is the source, then?"

Fargo plastered on his apologetic grin again. "Somewhere here at Global."

"I should've guessed," Jack groaned.

\---

The automated security cameras watched the two men leap over the twelve-foot security fence through the microwave barrier.

On the one hand, this was clearly intrusive behavior. On the other hand, it was also clearly not possible.

The dull-AI that monitored the system wasted several seconds processing whether to sound the alarm, to run a self-diagnostic, or to begin firing. Upon realizing that it was failing to reach the end of that loop of code, it dumped out and threw the whole mess onto the desktop of the head of GD security.

The security chief wasn't sure what the error message was, but the video image attached to it was unmistakable. Fortunately, he, unlike the AI, understood that in Eureka, things like supermetal heel springs and jet boots were a dime a dozen. He hadn't thought it through far enough to realize that anyone who was constructing those probably already worked for Global, and thus didn't need to jump the fence, but if he had, he would have suggested that they were students playing hooky from Tesla High, despite their adult appearances.

He hit the button. A klaxon began to wail dramatically, and orange lights flashed in the hallways. "Code Orange. All security personnel to the ground floor. Code Orange . . . "

\---

Fargo nearly fell out of his chair again when the alarm sounded. Nathan and Allison both wheeled on Buckaroo before realizing what the alarm code was. Zane and Henry both muttered identical epithets under their breath; then Zane and Fargo were patching into the security system feed, fingers flying across their keyboards.

"What in the heck?" Zane murmured, eyes riveted to the screen.

"I'd guess jet boots, but I don't see any flames," Fargo responded, similarly engaged.

"We canceled that program. What are you looking at?" Allison shouldered her way past Nathan to look at Fargo's screen; Jack and Buckaroo crowded around Zane's.

"Oh, no." Banzai stepped back. "Dr. Blake, how well armored are your security guards?"

"They're all equipped with the latest in bulletproof vests. Twelve times stronger than Kevlar, half the weight," she answered, forcing herself to look at him rather than past him. "The ones who work on the more hazardous floors have hazmat gear available as well."

"Tell them to use it. If they have full suits of the bulletproof armor, tell them to wear that, too." Buckaroo was frowning. "Those two beings are extremely dangerous and should be considered armed even if they're not holding weapons."

Stark was losing what little patience he had left. "What do you think they are?"

Buckaroo shook his head. "Not think. See. I've dealt with them before." He breathed once, deeply, as if he were grounding himself. "They're Lectroids from Planet Ten." Without further preamble, he took off towards the door.

Jack shook his head. "Trespassing, and maybe breaking and entering, is bad enough; you're saying I have to deal with illegal aliens, too?" He sprinted after Banzai. Fargo snapped his netbook shut and followed, too, as did Henry.

Nathan growled, "Hell if I'm going to let him get away with that," and followed.

Scowling, Allison glared at Zane. "Are you going after them, too, or are you staying here?"

"Someone's got to work on this while they do their heroics." Zane stole Fargo's chair. "Besides, I don't want to be in Jo's way when she gets here."

"Right." Allison rolled her eyes and followed after the rest of the boys.

Buckaroo and Jack piled out of the stairwell into the main lobby. A swarm of security guards were jogging in rough formation towards Section Two's wing. Jack caught one of them. "What's the situation?"

"Oh, good, law enforcement," she said breathlessly. "We've got two intruders on the west side of the campus, near the drone testing range. We issued two warnings that we will begin firing with non-lethal force, but they're ignoring us. Captain Newhouse is about ready to give the signal to start firing stun guns."

"They probably won't help," Buckaroo advised her. "Your intruders aren't human."

"Oh, great." She shook her head. "All we need around here is more robots." She rejoined the end of the pack as they headed down the long hallway.

Jack and Buckaroo followed, now flanked by Henry and Fargo. "What exactly do you mean, Lectroids from Planet Ten?" asked Fargo, slightly out of breath. "I mean, we've catalogued planets ten through twenty-seven, but they're all iceballs in the Oort cloud; none of them would support any life that we would recognize."

"They're actually from the tenth planet in the Alpha Centauri system. It's still a cold world, far from their sun, and their biology is very different from ours," Buckaroo said, "but in my universe, at least, there's liquid water and enough geothermal heat to support life underground there. They even call their smaller ships thermopods - conserving heat energy is very important to them." They made a corner, the security contingent still thumping ahead of them. "A group of butchers, basically a military cabal, had taken power there, but they were overthrown by a movement of democratic monarchists and were exiled to the Eighth Dimension."

"Like the Phantom Zone," Fargo observed.

Jack wasn't sure whether Buckaroo got the reference or not. Banzai continued, "I tangled with their leader, John Whorfin, before. He's dead now, but apparently some of his followers followed me when I trekked through this time." They arrived at the exterior door and pushed out into the sunlight - and a cacophony that made Jack wish for earplugs.

Two men, one tall, thin, and dressed almost as well as Nathan, the other stocky and wearing jeans, a faded polo, and a lab coat, were charging up the lawn of the testing range. The taller one held a briefcase in front of him like a shield; the other had his arms raised in front of his face. A barrage of stun-gun bolts from the automated defenses rained sideways at them, and a few even hit their mark as the two intruders wove and dodged, but they didn't slow down.

The chief of security edged up to the low fence that divided the testing range from the payload delivery area and raised a bullhorn. "Attention, trespassers!" he shouted, a tremor audible in his voice. "You are in a secure area without authorization. Stand down and allow us to inspect you, or we will be forced to fire on you. Repeat, stand down or we will fire." He lowered the bullhorn and chewed his lower lip.

The two men jinked left and then split up, one heading directly for one of the automated turrets, the other charging off towards Gamma Building.

Captain Newhouse raised one hand. "Rubber bullets, on my mark." The security guards pressed a button on their rifles and the magazines whirred.

"It won't help." Buckaroo stepped forwards. "You'll have to - "

"Ready!" barked the security captain. "Aim!"

Allison and Nathan arrived. "Jack, what's going on?" she demanded.

"Fire!" yelled Newhouse, and the rifles sounded with a series of cracks as the rubber bullets left their chambers at nearly the speed of sound. The shorter intruder yowled but kept running; the other gave no sign that he had noticed at all.

"Tall, short?" Jack asked Buckaroo. The scientist nodded, and they sprinted in opposite directions. Henry chased after Banzai; Nathan, after growling something about fools and angels, raced after Carter.

The taller one spun around towards the array of security guards, one hand in his pocket and his lips pursed. There was a noise that might have been a gun firing with a silencer, and one of the guards let out a cry and toppled over backwards.

"Live ammo!" ordered Newhouse, and the rifles whirred again.

Allison stepped up. "Wait, you might hit our guys! Hold your fire until they're clear."

Jack lowered his head and charged, hoping that Stark would cooperate. He was eating ground like he was racing for home plate. The heavier intruder made the mistake of looking back; he tried to dodge - a football move - and Jack obliged him in the change of game, tackling him expertly. They both went down, tumbling over the wet turf; by the time Nathan arrived, Jack had a knee in the other guy's back and his arms behind him.

"You have the right to remain silent," Jack started. As he went through the Miranda litany - strange how some things came back to you; he'd recited it once a week, if not more often, for most of his career, but he hadn't used it in the past half-year - Nathan went through the intruder's pockets.

"His ID says his name is John Coldwater," Nathan said, showing him the plastic badge from his lab coat pocket. "Looks like he works at Boeing."

Jack finished cuffing him and hauled him to his feet. "Corporate espionage?"

"They wouldn't be this blatant," Nathan scoffed.

Buckaroo went wide and darted past the taller interloper. "I know what you are," he called to the reptilian alien in the tailored suit. "Surrender or I'll take you back to John Emdall."

"Never," hissed the Lectroid, and attempted to spit again. Buckaroo dodged and used the momentum to swing around into the invader's path. The Lectroid let out a creaking battle-cry and launched itself into him; he stepped just askew of its path and launched it into the air with a judo throw.

"Dr. Deacon, steer clear, you're not armored," Buckaroo warned, and kicked the briefcase out of the alien's hand. Henry circled around behind them as two more security guards thundered up to them. Banzai pinned the Lectroid, still struggling, against the wall of Gamma Building. "Be careful. Don't let him spit on you," he warned the guards. "He looks human to you, but he's ten times stronger, and his biology is highly toxic to us." He grabbed the bandanna from Henry's pocket and stuffed it in the invader's mouth.

"Costigan's down!" called a voice behind them. Allison and Buckaroo both turned towards the sound, and intuitively started for the injured man gasping on the ground.

Fargo flung out both hands. "Wait! Stop!"

Jack halted. "What's the matter, Fargo?"

The executive assistant pointed at Buckaroo. "Dr. Banzai, what do you have there? What is he?"

Buckaroo looked slightly confused. "A Red Lectroid, an alien. I know you can't see his real appearance, but - "

"No, I believe you. Dr. Stark," he called in the other direction, "who did you guys catch?"

"Some researcher from Boeing," Nathan called. Jack nodded. Whoever this guy was, he certainly wasn't ten times as strong as a normal man.

"No, he's - " Buckaroo started, but Fargo waved him down. "Dr. Banzai, you said these things were toxic. If that's a Red Lectroid, what's happened to Mr. Costigan?"

"He's been poisoned by a Lectroid biodart. They shoot them from their throats," Bucakroo added.

"Do you know the antidote?" Fargo asked, his voice a little ragged from half-shouting.

Buckaroo looked away briefly. "There isn't one." He shook his head, slowly. "I've lost more than one friend to those. I - couldn't save them."

"Then Dr. Banzai, please, stay where you are! Dr. Blake, come here." The spectacle of Fargo giving anyone orders was strange enough, but watching Allison follow his suggestions was even stranger, Jack thought, as Coldwater struggled against the cuffs.

Fargo pointed to the fallen guard. "What's wrong with him?"

Allison dropped to a crouch. "He's been shot," she stated flatly. "Looks like a .22." Her fingers tugged at the bloodstained cloth; Costigan inhaled sharply and coughed. "Doesn't look like there's any internal organ damage, but we need to stop the blood loss."

Buckaroo's eyes flicked from the Lectroid that he, Henry, and two burly security people were barely keeping pinned, to Costigan, and back. "But I saw him - "

"Yeah. You saw him spit a biodart. Dr. Stark and Allison saw him shoot a silenced pistol through his jacket." Fargo looked at Stark for confirmation; he nodded, mouth tight and crooked.

It hit Jack like a sonic boom. "Wait, you don't mean - "

"I think so. If we can get back in the lab, we can prove it." Fargo was thrumming with the sheer energy of scientific discovery, practically vibrating in place.

A pair of security personnel arrived with a stretcher. Fargo jumped to Allison's side. "It's you and Stark, specifically, I think."

"What is?" Dr. Blake still hadn't gotten it yet.

Fargo waved both hands. "Nevermind. I'll tell you when we get proof. Just - stay closer to Costigan than Dr. Banzai is. It's important."

Allison stared at him in bewilderment, but she stayed with the stretcher as the guards escorted their wounded comrade off the field of battle. Jack turned to Nathan. "Is there anyplace secure we can take these guys?"

"Sure. But Taggart's going to have a fit." Nathan gave him a canted half-grin and started for the door.

The air on the drone range rippled, as if a cannon had been fired, but the sound that accompanied the shockwave was high and hollow. Jack whirled, expecting a bomb, but there was no debris, no fireball. Stark tightened his grip on their prisoner to compensate, but Coldwater didn't try to bolt; he seemed just as shocked as they were.

"Henry!" shouted Fargo; he bolted from where he stood towards Banzai's haphazard team. Buckaroo turned and nearly started; a shimmering silver half-mirror, perfectly spherical, separated Henry from him. The Lectroid squirmed, and Buckaroo refocused on keeping the alien pinned. "It's another time bubble!" he called to Fargo.

Fargo skidded to a stop next to the sphere. He pressed his right hand to the time distortion field and spelled out, in the manual alphabet, _R U OK?_

Barely visible through the silver, Henry didn't move. Fargo stepped back, then frantically searched his pockets. His hands came back out empty; in desperation, he grabbed a button on the flannel shirt he was wearing as a jacket and yanked it loose. He slapped his hand flat against the field, held it there for a long second, and then drew it back.

The button stayed suspended just within the field. Jack felt Stark relax slightly.

Fargo let out a whooshing sigh. "Slow-time bubble. He's not rapid-aging in there. We just have to get him out."

"Damn right." Stark glared daggers at everyone in sight, and dragged John Coldwater towards the main building with more force than was strictly necessary. "This whole ordeal needs to be over, now."

\---

"There." Perfect Tommy took off his welding shades. "That should be good."

Professor Hikita looked grave. "I recommend that we prepare for the possibility that this will not succeed." He regarded the device in front of him with skepticism. "This is not our best workmanship."

"It'll work." Penny put her hands on her hips and dug her heels into the concrete floor. "It has to work."

Perfect Tommy turned one of the fans towards the device. "Soon as it's cooled down, we'll switch it on."

Big Norse and Billy were already working on another design; their ideas for improving the efficiency of the Overthruster were flying thick and fast. Reno wondered whether they really understood that speed was of the essence, moreso in the event that this transmitter failed completely. They were more worried about things like energy consumption, which stuck him as luxuries, not necessities. His feeling of helplessness was almost as strong now as it had been during the construction phase.

Penny sat at the table in the chair Big Norse had vacated and ran a finger around the edge of the transmitting antenna. "What sort of signal are we sending?"

"We should be able to send voice-radio," Perfect Tommy answered. "We can plug in the microphone from one of our helmet-mikes, or just use the big one over there." He pointed in the general direction of the observation pit. New Jersey wandered off that way and began rummaging.

"Would you like to do the honors?" Hikita asked, softly. Penny rolled her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded; for the first time since Buckaroo's disappearance, she looked like she might be about to give in to her worries. Reno slid behind her and set one hand on her shoulder, trying to lend her reassurance. It was hard, he reflected, when he wasn't too assured himself.

"Should be good," Perfect Tommy announced. "Let's plug her in and fire her up."

New Jersey set the big radio microphone on the table without a word, meeting Penny's eyes with the smallest of smiles. Penny picked up the mike cord and found the socket as Perfect Tommy checked the wall outlet, touched the power cord, and flipped the switch. The hum of a vacuum tube deep in the machine rose steadily into near-inaudibility, and several flickering blue lights synchronized into a gallop around its base.

"Achieving eighth-dimensional synchrony . . . now," announced Hikita, eyes glued to the display on the device's side. The antenna flickered slightly, as if it were a projected image instead of a solid object.

"Buck - " Penny's voice caught for the briefest of moments before she exhaled and started again. "Buckaroo Banzai, this is Mission Control. Do you read us?"

A faint buzz of static hissed from the speaker.

Penny leaned into the microphone. "Buckaroo Banzai, this is Mission Control. Repeat, this is Mission Control. Do you read us?"

The lights racing around the base slowed to a trot, and stuttered; the antenna solidified again. Hikita frowned. "We are losing dimensional synchrony." He fiddled with two dials; Big Norse broke off her conversation with Billy and appeared silently at his elbow.

"Is it the older model Overthruster, or the housing?" Perfect Tommy reached for a screwdriver.

"Neither," Big Norse frowned. "It's using more juice than we expected. One-ten wall current isn't enough to maintain the dimensional connection."

Perfect Tommy made an irritated noise. "And we don't have a connection for two-twenty, although I can rig one." He brushed his hair back impatiently. "It'll take longer than I want to spend."

New Jersey edged towards the conversation. "Does whether it's A/C or D/C current matter?"

"Not really. We can convert from one to the other with the equipment we have here. Why?" Big Norse looked genuinely curious.

"Well, I don't know, could we maybe run more current in from the solar panel array on the bus? It provides enough juice for a whole bank of computers, and it's not as if we have any shortage of sunlight." New Jersey shrugged.

Perfect Tommy nodded. "We'll have to scrounge up more cable, but - yeah, that should work."

Reno headed for the door. "The generator in the engine might help, too. I'll bring her alongside."

Penny slumped in her chair, her sleepless night showing in the dark bruises at the corners of her eyes. "Guys, please hurry," she whispered as the lights on the base of the interdimensional transmitter blinked and randomized.

\---

"They're intended to hold polar bears," Stark mentioned offhandedly as he shut the door on the two intruders. John Coldwater and the Lectroid glared at each other, an aura of this-is-_your_-fault radiating from them both.

"Let's hope that's enough, then." Buckaroo didn't seem worried, despite his words. The transparent aluminum shield between the Lectroids and anyone else did appear to reassure him.

"It's held me," Jo offered. She was vaguely disappointed she'd missed all the excitement, but holding and interrogating perps was still in her list of Top Twenty Parts Of Her Job.

Buckaroo inclined his head slightly. "I'll trust it, then."

"I don't want to know, do I?" Zane aimed the parabolic Mylar-skinned device that Stark had used earlier at the would-be infiltrators; it squealed, and his eyebrows rose. "Chronomagnetic radiation. Big time."

"Not surprising," Fargo pointed out. "If Dr. Banzai's right about their origins, they're alien to this timeline as well as this planet."

"That's a lovely delusion, but these are two guys with Boeing IDs," Stark pointed out. The opportunity to take out a few frustrations physically had loosened him up, but the unnatural tension in his shoulders was returning.

"Right. So that's where we'll start." Fargo held up the ID that Stark had taken off of the stouter trespasser, the one that read "John Coldwater." Jack looked at it again; it was, as far as he could tell, a regular corporate ID card, with the little spring-loaded clip that held it in place on a pocket or lapel. It was scuffed a bit where Nathan had scraped it against the ground in the struggle.

Fargo gestured the sheriff and the deputy over. "Okay. Stark was holding this before I got it. What does it say?"

"Boeing, Seattle Campus G, John Coldwater, zero-seven-five-five-three-zero-four," Jo read off. Jack nodded. "Yeah, same thing."

"Deputy Lupo, follow it." Fargo turned and handed the card to Banzai, who shook his head. "This is a Yoyodyne ID. It's a Lectroid front company."

Jo whistled through her teeth. "He's right. It is." She took it from Buckaroo and handed it back to Jack.

The photo was the same image of John Coldwater, looking vaguely drunk. The name was the same, but now it was above the corporate logo, which had become a cross between the eye in the pyramid and the old atomic emblem, in an awful shade of green. The words "Portland Campus" had been added in what looked like permanent marker at the very bottom. There was no employee ID number at all.

"What?" Nathan stalked over and snatched the ID out of Jack's hands. "That's ludicrous; look at it." He flipped it face-up; it was back to the Boeing ID.

"That's . . . really weird," Zane offered lamely.

Fargo had a look of intense concentration. "Dr. Stark, turn it so Dr. Banzai can see it."

"Why?" Nathan frowned at Fargo's pleading look, but he held it up.

Dr. Banzai squinted at it. "I concur with Mr. Donovan."

Fargo took it again and handed it to Buckaroo. "Hold it up for Dr. Stark."

The scowl dropped off of Nathan's face for the first time since he'd seen Buckaroo, and was replaced by pure scientific fascination. "It's blank." He blinked. "I don't think Fargo's capable of that sort of slight of hand - "

"Gee, thanks," Fargo grumbled.

" - but I don't know whether you are or not. Dr. Banzai, put the tag on the floor."

Buckaroo bent down and set it on the floor. Nathan's eyes flared. "And now it's back to the Boeing ID."

"It's still the Yoyodyne ID to me," Buckaroo said softly.

Fargo nodded. "I'm betting that it's the Yoyodyne tag for everyone who's closer to Dr. Banzai, and the Boeing ID for everyone who's closer to Dr. Stark."

There was a strange high overtone in Nathan's voice. "What does it look like to you, Fargo?"

The shorter scientist smiled weakly. "Both at once. I can make it flip back and forth."

Jack stared at it and thought, _Yoyodyne_. It became the awful green ID. _Boeing_. Back to the other one. "Yeah, me too."

Jo shook her head. "It's still Yoyodyne for me." She stalked across the room towards Nathan, stopping just past Fargo. "And it just - _flipped_." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand; they were starting to water. "What's going on?"

"We search for fire with a lighted lantern," Banzai murmured.

Fargo picked up a small device with a pair of tiny glass tubes pointing from the end. "This is a chronopotentiometer. If I'm right, it'll give distinctly higher readings when it's in close proximity to Dr. Banzai."

"Here, let me." Zane held out one hand. "No offense, Fargo, but you're too close to this to be objective."

Fargo made an inarticulate noise of protest, then stopped himself. "No, you're right, I am. Go ahead." He handed it over to Zane.

The boyish scientist retreated to the edge of the room and began pacing carefully across it. The device made a quiet chirping noise that seemed oddly appropriate next to Taggart's cages. As Zane approached Buckaroo, the chirping rose in pitch and frequency; as he moved away, it fell again.

Zane shook his head, bewildered. "It's like the chronospatial constant is higher near him."

"It is," Buckaroo said, enlightenment dawning on features that were used to it.

"He's carrying around a bubble of his own reality," Fargo explained. "Close to him, things react as they would in his universe. And it seems to be psychological reality, too, not just physical reality."

"Not psychological, exactly, but perceptive reality, I would guess," Buckaroo added.

"I don't know which of those is crazier," Stark said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, thank God," Jo said to the ceiling. Zane glanced at her sideways, but continued his previous policy of not asking.

"And I think if he were transported to Buckaroo's universe, the same would be true for Dr. Stark," Fargo continued. "That's why he's resistant to the effects - but it's like a physical stressor. He's _fighting_ it, and that's why he's reacted so badly to Dr. Banzai the whole time - and why he keeps forgetting about him. He's unconsciously trying to patch the hole in reality, from his perspective." He swallowed. "Dr. Blake, too, I think, although maybe not as strongly."

"So the Lectroid dart really _was_ a bullet, as long as I was - " Buckaroo's mouth was a tight line. "I would have killed him."

Stark looked at Fargo with a strange light in his eyes. "Any other revelations you want to share with us, Fargo?"

"No, I - " Fargo jumped like he'd sat on a tack. "The negative sign!"

Zane almost fumbled the device as the same thought stuck him like lightning. "You think?"

"What now?" Jack's head was spinning, and he'd already figured out the part about Buckaroo not operating on normal reality, even for Eureka.

"The chronotons are traveling - " started Fargo.

"Backwards in time!" Zane finished.

"That's . . . okay, actually, that's the first part of this that makes sense," Stark admitted.

"It does?" Jo blurted.

Jack shrugged. "So what does that mean?

"It means that the source of the chronotons is _us_, creating a stream for Banzai to travel back to his own spacetime universe on," Fargo babbled. "And once we turn it on, they'll disappear and the localized flaws in spacetime will dissipate."

"And that'll free Henry?" Jack asked. Fargo nodded enthusiastically. "Well, how fast can you get on it?"

"Now that I know we've done it," Zane smirked, "less than two hours. How's the car coming along?"

\---

"And the few time-forward particles are coming from outside our timeline," Zane pointed out with a look so smug it made Nathan look humble. "I suspect they're being broadcast from Banzai's homeline, by his team, to guide him back."

"So we'll need to align our frequency with theirs," Nathan added. "Fortunately, we already know the vibratory rate of the chronotons involved." He fiddled with a slider on the rebuilt harmonic inductor.

Banzai was back in his racing leathers. The two Lectroids were crammed into the Jet Car, in Global's best restraints and drugged unconscious; Allison had verified that their physiology was quite human around her. Test Track Six stretched ahead of them.

"And since Dr. Banzai's reality distortion field encompasses the car, the Oscillation Overthruster will phase him out of our timeline, even though by our reality's rules it shouldn't." Fargo looked at the plywood target that they'd propped up downrange.

"Well, shall we get ready?" Nathan held up the remote. Fargo fidgeted and looked as if he were about to say something, then glanced away again.

Buckaroo had just lifted his helmet when Fargo spun around and charged up to him. "Dr. Banzai, please take me with you!" he cried, catching at Buckaroo's arm. Nathan's head snapped up.

"Douglas, you know I can't do that," Banzai said softly.

"Please! Dr. Banzai, you believe I'm _competent_," Fargo pleaded. "Around you, I'm useful, hell, I'm brilliant. In your reality, I'm not a schmuck. Once you leave, I'll go back to being my own loser self." Desperation flared in his eyes.

"Fargo, don't," Nathan muttered under his breath.

Buckaroo put his hands on Fargo's shoulders. "Douglas, listen to me. The reality distortion field - it works on me, on things from my reality. Not on you." He leaned in just slightly, raising Fargo's eyes to his own. "You borrowed a dose of my luck, that's all."

Fargo looked like he was about to cry. "But - _please_ \- they don't need me here. They don't even _want_ me here."

"Fargo, shut up," Nathan said. Jack turned and stared at him; his tone had said something closer to _"Yes, I do."_

Zane glanced askance at Stark and then said, "Fargo, you can't abandon S.A.R.A.H. and Tabitha and the rest of your AIs like that. You know you can't."

Buckaroo nodded. "Sarah would be very sad if you left. She needs you."

Fargo wiped at his nose. "Yeah, okay. I get it." He clasped Buckaroo's shoulders awkwardly and turned away, hugging himself.

Banzai reached into his pocket. "Anyway, I need you to be here to give this to Dr. Deacon when he's released." He pressed two metal objects into Fargo's palm, then waved Jack over and handed one to him.

It was a small blue badge in the shape of two angular letter B's back-to-back. On it was inscribed "Blue Blaze Irregular JACK CARTER #778."

Buckaroo smiled. "If I ever come back, I imagine you three will be very helpful."

Jack wasn't quite sure what to think, although he was reasonably sure he was flattered. "Thanks."

Nathan rolled his eyes. "Are we ready yet, or are we going to make Henry wait through a full round of tearful goodbyes?."

"Right." Buckaroo climbed into the Jet Car without another word. Jack suddenly realized that Henry had fixed the window, as well.

"Ready?" Zane hit the power switch on the harmonic inductor. The Y-connector began flashing steadily.

The engines on the Jet Car thrummed, hummed, rumbled, and whined. The heavy vehicle accelerated, the wheels blurring, then the engines, then the car itself.

"Mark," Zane said. Fargo wiped his glasses and resettled them on his nose. Nathan stared at his watch.

Three beams of teal light flared from the Jet Car and bored into the plywood barrier. The vehicle slammed into it and disappeared right on schedule.

"Hit it!" Zane shouted over the noise, and Nathan pressed the switch on the remote. The harmonic inductor flared, sang with an unearthly note, and then wound slowly down again.

"He's gone," Fargo announced mournfully. "Full transition into the Eighth Dimension."

Zane checked the handheld scanner. "Local chronomagnetic radiation is back to background."

"Excellent." Nathan stretched his shoulders and dropped into his usual posture. For a moment, he looked as if he might be about to pat Fargo on the shoulder, but he thought better of it. "Let's go get - "

Jack's phone rang. He reached into his pocket, smiled like the sun after a storm, and flipped it open. "Hey, Henry. Yeah, we just sent Banzai home. Sorry you missed the excitement."

Fargo sighed. "Back to reality," he grumbled, kicking at a clod of dirt.

Jack blinked, thinking. "Hang on, Henry. We'll be there in a moment." He dropped the phone back into his pocket. "Like Stark was saying, let's go pick Henry up. We owe him a debriefing."

As the group ambled around the corner of the building, Jack started humming. Jo raised an eyebrow, and then joined in. A few minutes later, Fargo began singing the high harmony part; "Never enough, to know just a little, no, it's never enough - "

Nathan snorted. "Fargo, I didn't know you could sing."

Fargo stopped abruptly. "I can't." He shook his head. "Must be an aftereffect of Banzai's reality."

"Sounded like it was all you to me." Nathan grinned lightly to himself, as Fargo gaped at him and tried to figure out exactly what he meant.

\---

Penny, exhausted by four straight hours at the microphone, was sprawled on the table. Reno was taking his turn. "Buckaroo Banzai, this is Mission Control. We're standing by ready to assist you. Repeat, this is Mission Control. We are -"

"A sound for sore ears," crackled the speaker. Penny sat up like she'd been shocked. "Buckaroo!" the room chorused, crowding around the device.

"I got a little sidetracked," Buckaroo's voice announced. "But I'm okay now. I should be arriving -"

Turquoise light blazed from the side of the shack next to the observation bunker; the Jet Car erupted from it at just under the speed of sound and fishtailed wildly as it deployed its brake chute.

Reno and Perfect Tommy unfroze first, and nearly collided as they raced for the door and jumped on the bikes. Dust plumes marked their trails as they raced to the now-stationary Jet Car and the figure in black leather next to it.

"What happened, boss?" Reno was shouting before he managed to dismount. Perfect Tommy was more careful, but both bikes tumbled to the dirt as they sprinted for Banzai.

Bucakroo unbuckled his helmet. "John Whorfin has his own body back, and apparently if he can't have either Earth or Planet Ten, he's claiming the Eighth Dimension as his own private fiefdom. He tried to attack the Jet Car when I made the last transition, but instead he knocked me out of alignment with our reality, and I landed in an alternate future where I was never born." He looked out at the far Texas horizon. "Fortunately, I met a team of scientists who would do our Blue Blaze Irregulars proud. We'll have to look some of them up, see if they were born in our reality."

"Hey, we're big news on Planet Ten, why not parallel universes?" Perfect Tommy shrugged, trying to hide his relief. "Oh, and we discovered what we think are organic bugs - listening or viewing devices, but biological - that appear to be of Lectroid origin, out here on the test site."

"So Whorfin's been spying on us. Good to know. Hopefully he hasn't shared the information." Banzai frowned slightly. "Do you remember the girl I told you I thought was a patsy for Hanoi Xan, about five years ago?"

"Yeah." The non-sequitur seemed to put Perfect Tommy off-balance. "Don't worry, I haven't contacted her since."

"Marie Donovan, right?" Banzai almost flinched as Perfect Tommy nodded. "I may have been wrong about her. Even if I was right, I might have been wrong. Do you know how to get in touch with her?"

"No, but I bet Billy can find out." Perfect Tommy decided to roll with it. "I'll call her as soon as we get back to World Headquarters."

"Good." Buckaroo lifted his eyes. "And it looks like Big Norse is bringing the bus out here to pick us up."

"Everyone's glad to see you," Reno grinned. "Even if it means we all have to get back to work."

Buckaroo nodded. "Exactly. We'll need to get the yellow record back out - I think John Emdall needs to be warned. I'm putting a moratorium on any Overthruster use until we have a plan. Someone should check whether Yoyodyne has any remaining active assets. And we need to have a rehearsal before the show." He looked at his watch. "We may have to rehearse on the bus."

Reno nodded. "We'll start packing up. Glad to have you back to reality, Buckaroo." Penny was leaping from the door of the bus and running towards them, with the rest of the team climbing out a little more carefully behind her.

"Oh, and I finally finished the new song," Banzai added as they fell into step together.

A few last clods of the damp, fertile soil of the Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest crumbled from the Jet Car's bumper and mixed with the desert dust of West Texas. A crow pecked at the dark earth experimentally, and flew away.


End file.
